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English Men of Letters, Edited by John Morley. 



OF 



LOCKE 



BY 



THOMAS FOWLER 



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i. Hyperion 20 

2. Outre-Mer 20 

3. The Happy Boy jo 

4. Arne 10 

5. Frankenstein 10 

6. TheLastof theMohicans.20 

7. Clytie 20 

8. The Moonstone, Part 1 . 10 

9. The Moonstone, Part II. 10 

10. Oliver Twist 20 

»i. The Coming Race 10 

»2. Leila .10 

13. The Three Spaniards.. .20 

14. The Tricks of the Greeks. 20 

15. L' Abbe Constantin 20 

16. Freckles 20 

17. The Dark Colleen 20 

18. They were Married 10 

19. Seekers After God 20 

20. The Spanish Nun 10 

21. Green Mountain Boys.. 20 

22. Fleurette 20 

23. Second Thoughts 20 

24. The New Magdalen 20 

25. Divorce 20 

26. Life of Washington 20 

27. Social Etiquette 15 

28. Single Heart, Double 
Face 10 

29. Irene ; or, The Lonely 
Manor 20 

30. Vice Versa 20 

31. Ernest Maltravers 20 

32. The Haunted House... 10 

33. John Halifax 20 

34. 800 Leagues on the 
Amazon 10 

) 35- The Cryptogram 10 

36. Life of Marion 20 

i 37. Paul and Virginia 10 

j 38. A Tale of Two Cities.... 20 

■: 39. The Hermits 20 

40. An Adventure in Thule, 

etc ia 

J 41. A Marriage in High Life2o 

42. Robin 20 

43. Two on a Tower 20 

44. Rasselas 10 

45. Alice ; a sequel to Er- 

nest Maltravers 20 

46. Duke of Kandos 20 

47. Baron Munchausen 10 

48. A Princess of Thule 20 

49. The Secret Despatch.. . .20 

50. Early Days of Christian- 
ity, 2 Parts, each 20 

51. Vicar of Wakefield 10 

52. Progress and Poverty ... 20 

53. The Spy 20 

54. East Lynne 20 

55. A Strange Story 20 

56. Adam Bede, Part 1 15 

Adam Bede, Part II 15 

57. The Golden Shaft 20 

58. Portia 20 

59. Last Days of Pompeii. . .20 

60. The Two Duchesses 20 

61. TomBrown'sSchoolDays.20 

62. Wooing O't, 2 Pts. each.15 

63. The Vendetta..' 20 

64. Hypatia, Part 1 15 

_; Hypatia, Part II . ... *■ . . 15 



Selma 15 

Margaret and her Brides- 
maids ■• 20 

Horse Shoe Robinson, 

2 Parts, each 15 

Gulliver's Travels. .... .20 

Amos Barton 10 

The Berber 20 

Silas Marner 10 

Queen of the County . . .20 

Life of Cromwell 15 

Jane Eyre 20 

Child'sHist'ry of EngPd.20 

Molly Bawn....^ .26 

Pilloiie. 15 

Phyllis 20 

Romola, Part 1 15 

Romola, Part II 15 

Science in ShortChapters.20 

Zanoni 20 

A Daughter of Heth 20 

Right and Wrong Uses of 

the Bible 20 

Night and Morning, Pt. 1 . 1 5 
NightandMorning,Pt.II 15 

Shandon Bells 20 

Monica 10 

Heart and Science 20 

The Golden Calf 20 

The Dean's Daughter. . .20 

Mrs. Geoffrey 20 

Pickwick Papers, Part 1. 20 
Pickwick Papers, Part II. 20 

Airy, Fairy Lilian 20 

Macleod of Dare .20 

Tempest Tossed, Part 1. 20 
Tempest Tossed, P't 1 1. 20 
Letters from High Lat- 
itudes 20 

Gideon Fleyce 20 

India and Ceylon 20 

The Gypsy Queen 20 

The Admiral's Ward 20 

Nimport, 2 Parts, each.. 15 

Harry Holbrooke . 20 

Tritons, 2 Parts, each ..15 
Let Nothing You Dismay. 10 
Lady Audley's Secret ... 20 
Woman's Place To-day. 20 
Dunallan, 2 parts, each.15 
Housekeeping and Home 

making 15 

No New Thing 20 

TheSpoopendykePapers.20 

False Hopes ,1 15 

Labor and Capital 20 

Wanda, 2 parts, each ... 15 
More Words about Bible. 20 
Monsieur Lecocq, P't. 1. 20 
Monsieur \ jcocq, Pt. 1 1 . 20 
An Outline of Irish Hist. 10 
The Lerouge Case. .... .20 

Paul Clifford 20 

A New Lease of Life . . . 20 

Bourbon Lilies 20 

Other People's Money.. 20 

Lady of Lyons 10 

Ameline de Bourg 15 

A Sea Queen 20 

The Ladies Lindores. ..20 

Haunted Hearts 10 

Loys, LoriBeresfotd. . .20, 



134 
i3S' 
136 
J37' 
138, 
139 
140 
141. 
142, 

143. 
144. 

145. 

146. 
147. 
148. 
149. 
150. 

151, 
152. 
153. 
153- 
154. 

i55- 
156. 
i57- 

158. 

i59. 
160. 
161. 

- J2. 
i6 3 . 

164. 
I6 5 . 

1&6. 

167. 
168. 
169. 
170. 
171. 
172. 
173. 
1 74 . 
175. 
176. 
i77< 
178. 
179. 
1S0. 
181. 
182. 
183. 
184. 



Under Two Flags, Pt I. 20 
Under Two Flags, Pt 1 1. 2cl 

Money ffl 

In Peril of His Life M 

India; What can it teach 

us? 20 

Jets and Flashes 20 

Moonshine and Margur - 

rites 10 

Mr. Scarborough* s f 
Family, 2 Parts, each . . tj 

Arden ij 

Tower of Percemont. . . .20 

Yolande 2$ 

Cruel London Jit 

The Gilded Clique 20 

Pike County Folks 20 

Cricket on the Hearth. . 10 

Henry Esmond 20 

Strange Adventures of a 

Phaeton a* 

Denis Duval m 

OldCuriosityShop.P't 1. 15 
01dCuriosityShop,P'rt II. fit 

Ivanhoe, Part I M 

Ivanhoe, Part II . . . ffi 

White Wings 26 

The Sketch Book 20 

Catherine xo 

Janet's Repentance 10 

Barnaby Rudge, Part L. 15 
Barnaby Rudge, Part II. 15 

Felix Holt 20 

Richelieu = 10 

Sunrise, Part I is 

Sunrise, Part II 15 

Tour of the World in 80 

Days ..26 

Mystery of Orcival 20 

Lovel, the Widower 10 

Romantic Adventures of 

a Milkmaid 10 

DavidCopperfield,Part I.20 
DavidCopperneld,P'rt 1 1. 20 

Charlotte Temple 10 

Rienzi, 2 Parts, each ... 15 

Promise of Marriage 10 

Faith and Unfaith 20 

The Happy Man 10 

Barry Lyndon 20 

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20,000 Leagues Under the 

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Her Mother's Sin.-. 20 

Green Pastures, etc 20 

Mysterious Island, Pt l.iy 




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LOCKE 



BY 

THOMAS FOWLER 

WIOFESSOR OF LOGIC IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 



NEW YORK: 

JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY, 

14 and 16 Vesey Street. 



*> 



^ 

n 
** 



. NOTE. 

In writing the chapters on Locke's Life, I have derived much infor- 
mation from the biographies of Lord King and Mr. Fox- Bourne, espe- 
cially from the latter, which contains a large amount of most interesting 
documents never before printed. In a work like the present, where 
numerous foot-notes would be out of place, I am obliged to content my- 
self with this general acknowledgment. I may add that I have also 
referred to several other authorities, both printed and in manuscript ; and, 
in some cases, I believe that my account will be found more precise than 
bat given in the larger biographies. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 

Pag*. 

Locke's Boyhood.— His early Life in Oxford. ... 9 



CHAPTER II. 

Medical Studies.— Public Employments. — Connexion with 
Shaftesbury 15 



CHAPTER III. 

Residence in France. — Further Relations with Shaftes- 
bury. — Expulsion from Christ Church . . . . 25 



CHAPTER IV. 

Residence in Holland. — The Revolution. — Return to Eng- 
land. — Publication of the " Essay " and other works . 35 



CHAPTER V. 
Life at Oates. — Friendships.— Further Publications . . 46 

CHAPTER VI. 

Political Affairs.— Public Occupations.— Relations with 
the King 58 

(7) 



8 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VII. 

Pi A. 

Controversy with Stillingfleet. — Other Literary Occupa- 
tions. — Domestic Life — Peter King. — Latter Years. — 
Death 70 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Essay on Human Understanding 85 

CHAPTER IX. 

Locke's Opinions on Religion and Morals, and his Theo- 
logical Writings • . . . .100 

CHAPTER X. 

The Thoughts on Education and the Conduct of the Un- 
derstanding 109 

CHAPTER XI. 
Works on Government, Trade, and Finance. . • . *i6 

CHAPTER XII. 
Locke's Influence on Thought 125 



LOCKE. 



CHAPTER. I 
locke's boyhood. — his early life in oxford. 

John Locke, perhaps the greatest, but certainly the most char- 
acteristic, of English philosophers, was born at Wrington, a pleasant 
village in the north of Somersetshire, August 29, 1632. His family, 
however, resided in the village of Pensford, and the parish of 
Publow, within a few miles of Bristol. It was there, probably, that 
Locke spent the greater part of his early life. His mother appears 
to have died while he was young. From his father, John Locke 
(b. 1606), who seems to have inherited a fair estate, and who prac- 
tised, with some success, as a country attorney, he probably derived, 
if not his earliest instruction, at least some of his earliest influences 
and some of his most sterling characteristics. " From Mr. Locke 
I have often heard of his father," says Lady Masham in a MS. 
letter quoted by Mr. Fox-Bourne in his Life of Locke, " that he 
was a man of parts. Mr. Locke never mentioned him but with 
great respect and affection. His father used a conduct toward him 
when young that he often spoke of afterwards with great approba- 
tion. It was the being severe to him by keeping him in much awe 
and at a distance when he was a boy, but relaxing, still by degrees, 
of that severity as he grew up to be a man, till, he being become 
capable of it, he lived perfectly with him as a friend. And I 
remember he has told me that his father, after he was a man, sol- 
emnly asked his pardon for having struck him once in a passion when 
he was a boy." 

Locke's boyhood coincided pretty nearly with the troubles of the 
Civil Wars. " I no sooner perceived myself in the world," he 
wrote in 1660, "but I found myself in a storm which has lasted 
almost hitherto." His father, when Locke was hardly ten years 
old, publicly announced, in the parish church of Publow, his assent 
to the protest of the Long Parliament, and, a few weeks afterwards, 
took the field, on the Parliamentary side, as captain of a troop of 
horse in a regiment of volunteers. Though the fortunes of the 
family undoubtedly suffered from this step on the part of the young 
attorney, the political and religious interests which it created and 



10 



LOCKE. 



kept alive in his household must have contributed, in no small 
degree, to shape the character and determine the sympathies of his 
elder son. 

Locke, then, may be regarded as having been fortunate in early 
surroundings. Born in one of the more cnarming of the rural dis- 
tricts of England, not far, however, from a city which was then one 
of the most important centres of commerce and politics ; sprung 
from respectable and well-to-do parents, of whom the father, at 
least, possessed more than ordinary intelligence ; accustomed, from 
his earliest boyhood, to watch the progress of the great events, and 
to listen to the discussion of great and stirring questions ; there 
seems to have been nothing in his early life to retard or mar the 
development of his genius, and much that we may not unreasonably 
connect with the marked peculiarities, both moral and intellectual, 
of his subsequent career. 

■It was probably in the year 1646 that, through the interest of 
Colonel Popham, a friend and client of his father, Locke was admitted 
at Westminster School, where, probably in the following year, he 
was elected on the foundation. Here he must have remained about 
six years, till his election to a Westminster Studentship at Christ 
Church, Oxford, in 1652. Of the manner in which Locke spent 
these years we have no definite information. The stern disciplin- 
arian, Mr. Busby, had been head master for about eight years when 
he entered the school, and among his schoolfellows, senior to him 
by about a year, were Dryden and South. The friends whom he 
made at Westminster, though highly respectable in after-life, did 
not achieve any great reputation. Of the studies which then con- 
stituted the ordinary school curriculum, his matured opinions are 
to be found in the " Thoughts concerning Education," which will 
be described in a subsequent chapter. To judge from this book, 
the impressions left on Locke's mind by our English public school 
education were not of a pleasant or favourable kind. 

Locke appears to have commenced his residence at Christ Church 
in the Michaelmas Term of 1652, soon after he had turned twenty 
years of age. His matriculation before the Vice-Chancellor bears 
date Nov. 27. Since the outbreak of the Civil Wars, both the 
University and the College had undergone many vicissitudes. At 
the moment when Locke entered, Cromwell was Chancellor ; and 
Dr. John Owen, who was destined to be for some time the leading 
resident, had been recently appointed Dean of Christ Church and 
Vice-Chancellor of the University. Owen was an Independent, and, 
for a divine of that age, a man of remarkably tolerant and liberal 
views. Though, then as now, a dignitary in Owen's position prob- 
ably had and could have but little intercourse with the*junior mem- 
bers of his society, it is not improbable that Locke may have derived 
his first bias towards those opinions on the question of religious 
toleration, for which he afterwards became so famous, from the pub- 
lications and the practice of the Puritan Dean of Christ Church. 
Locke's tutor was a Mr. Cole, afterwards Principal of St. Mary 
Hall, but of his relations with his pupil we hear nothing of any im- 



LOCKE. ii 

portance. Wood calls him a " fanatical tutor ; " by which, of course, 
he does not mean more than that he was a Puritan. 

During the Civil Wars the discipline and reputation of the 
Universities, however we may apportion the blame, seems to have 
suffered most severely. In these troublous times, indeed, it could 
hardly be otherwise. There is considerable evidence to show that, 
in the Little or Barebones Parliament of 1653, there was a serious 
attempt to suppress the Colleges and Universities altogether, and to 
apply the proceeds of their estates, as Clarendon tells us, ; ' for the 
public service, and to ease the people from the payment of taxes 
and contributions." If such an attempt ever had any chance of 
success— and from an oration of Dr. Owen we may infer that it had 
—it must have spread consternation amongst University circles, 
and been a frequent subject of conversation during the early period 
of Locke's residence in Oxford. But the Puritan party, which was 
now in the ascendant, was determined that, at any rate, no handle 
should be given to the enemy by any lack of discipline or by the 
infrequency of religious exercises. " Frequent preaching in every 
house," Anthony a Wood tell us, " was the chief matter aimed at" 
by the Visitors appointed by Cromwell in 1652. Thus, on June 27, 
1653, they ordered that " all Bachelors of Arts and Undergraduates 
in Colleges and Halls he required, every Lord's day, to give an 
account to some person of known ability and piety of the sermons 
they had heard and their attendance on other religious exercises 
that day. The Heads also or Deputies of the said Societies, with 
all above the Degree of Bachelor, were then ordered to be person- 
ally present at the performance of the said exercise, and to take 
care that it be attended with prayer and such other duties of 
religion as are proper to such a meeting." In addition to the 
Sunday observances, there were also, in most Colleges, if not in all, 
one or two sermons or religious meetings in the course of the week. 
Locke, if we may judge from his character in latter years, must have 
occasionally found these tedious, and doubtless lengthy, exercises 
somewhat irksome and unprofitable. But we do not meet in his 
writings with any definite complaints of them, as we do of the 
scholastic disputations and some other parts of the academical 
course as pursued at that time. Of the disputations, which then 
constituted a very important element in the University curriculum, 
he expresses an unfavourable, perhaps too unfavourable an opinion. 
Writing in 1690, in the " Thoughts concerning Education," he says : 
" If the use and end of right reasoning be to have right notions 
and a right judgment of things, to distinguish between truths and 
falsehoods, right and wrong, and to act accordingly, be sure not to 
let your son be bred up in the art and formality of disputing— 
either practising it himself or admiring it in others — unless, instead 
of an able man, you desire to have him an insignificant wrangler, 
opiniator in discourse, and priding himself in contradicting others; 
or, which is worse, questioning everything, and thinking there is no 
such thing as truth to be sought, but only victory, in disputing. 
There connot be anything so disingenuous, so becoming a gentle- 



1 2 LOCKE. 

man, or any one who pretends to be a rational creature, as not to 
yield to plain reason and the conviction of clear arguments. Is 
there anything more inconsistent with civil conversation, and the 
end of all debate, than not to take an answer, though ever so full 
and satisfactory ? . . . For this, in short, is the way and perfection 
of logical disputes, that the opponent never takes any answer, nor 
the respondent ever yields to any argument." With the logic and 
rhetoric, the Latin speaking and writing, then in vogue, Locke is 
almost equally discontented. In fact, he looked back, in after-life, 
with little gratitude on the somewhat dry course of studies which the 
University then prescribed to its younger scholars. " I have often 
heard him say, in reference to his first years spent in the Univer- 
sity," says Lady Masham, "that he had so small satisfaction there 
from his studies, as finding very little light brought thereby to his 
understanding, that he became discontented with his manner of 
life, and wished his father had rather designed him for anything 
else than what he was destined to, apprehending that his no greater 
progress in knowledge proceeded from his not being fitied or capa- 
citated to be a scholar." We must, however, by no means infer that 
Locke had not derived considerable benefit from the discipline 
which he disparages. At any rate, the scholastic teaching of 
Oxford had a large share in forming, by reaction, many of his most 
characteristic opinions, while the Essay, in almost every page, bears 
distinctive marks of his early studies. Notwithstanding his depre- 
ciation, amounting often to ridicule, of the subjects he had learnt in 
his youth, we can hardly doubt that, if Locke had been brought up 
in an University where logic and philosophy did not form part of 
the course, his greatest work would never have been written. 

Mr. Fox-Bourne attempts to supply a detailed account of the 
lectures which Locke attended, and the course of studies which he 
pursued, during his undergraduate and bachelor days. This ac- 
count, however, betrays an "innocent belief in the rigid enforcement 
and observance of University and College statutes, which, I am 
sorry to say, I cannot share. Minute regulations regarding courses 
of study and attendance at lectures are apt very soon to fall into 
desuetude, and it is impossible now to reconstruct with any accur- 
acy, from the perusal of merely formal documents, a plan of the 
student life of the Commonwealth. It is to be much regretted that 
Locke and his contemporaries have not left us more specific inform- 
ation on the subject. All we can now say is that, if the authorities 
duly enforced their statutes and regulations, especially those relat- 
ing to professorial lectures, many of which were appointed to be 
given at eight o'clock in the morning, the students of those days 
had by no means an easier time of it than their successors, even in 
these days of competition and examinations. 

The stated regulations and pi escribed statutes of a seat of learn 
ing have, however, often far less to do with the formation of a stu- 
dent's mind than the society of the young men of his own age with 
whom his residence throws him into contact. Young men often 
educate one another far more effectually than they can be educated 



LOCKE, 13 

by their tutors or their books. The mutual confidences, the lively 
interchange of repartee, the free discussion of all manner of sub- 
jects in college rooms or during the afternoon walk, are often fal 
more stimulating and informing to the intellect than the professorial 
lecture, however learned, or the tutorial catechising, however search- 
ing. Of this less formal and more agreeable species of education 
Locke appears to have enjoyed his full share. He was not, ac- 
cording to the account which he gave of himself to Lady Masham, 
" any very hard student," but " sought the company of pleasant and 
witty men, with whom he likewise took great delight in correspond- 
ing by letters ; and in conversation and these correspondences he 
spent for some years much of his time." 

It should be noticed that in the year 1654 Owen published a 
volume of congratulatory verses addressed to Cromwell on the 
treaty recently concluded with the Dutch, entitled " Musarum 
Oxoniensium eAato^opi*." Among the many contributors to this 
volume, young and old, was Locke, who wrote a short copy of 
Latin, and a longer copy of English verses. These compositions 
do not rise much above, or sink much below, the ordinary level of 
such exercises ; but what is curious is that Locke's first published 
efforts in literature should have been in verse, especially when we 
bear in mind his strong and somewhat perverse judgment on verse- 
writing in §174 of the "Thoughts concerning Education." The 
fact of his having been invited to contribute to the volume shows 
that he was regarded as one of the more promising young students 
of his time. 

To the period of Locke's life covered by this chapter probably 
belong some interesting notes on philosophy and its divisions, 
foundin his father's memorandum-book. These reflections afford 
evidence that he had already begun to think for himself, independ- 
ently of the scholastic traditions. I append one or two character- 
istic extracts : 

" Dialectic, that is Logic, is to make reasons to grow, and improve 
both Physic and also Ethic, which is Moral Philosophy." 

" Moral Philosophy is the knowledge of precepts of all honest manners 
which reason acknowledged! to belong and appertain to man's nature, as 
the things in which we differ from beasts. It is also necessary for the 
comely go-vernment of man's life." 

" Necessity was the first finder-out of Moral Philosophy, and experi- 
ence (which is a trusty teacher) was the first master thereof." 

Locke took his B.A. degree on the 14th of February, i&SS-^, 
and his M.A. degree on the 29th of June, 1658, the latter on the 
same day with Nathaniel Crewe, afterwards Lord Crewe, Bishop 
of Durham, and Joseph Glanvill, the celebrated writer on witch- 
craft, and author of Scepsis Scientifica The statutable time of 
taking both degrees was anticipated, but irregularities of this kind 
were not then infrequent. On the 24th of December, 1660, he was 
appointed Greek Lecturer at Christ Church for the ensuing year, 
thus taking his place among the authorised teachers of his college, 



14 



LOCKE. 



and so entering on a new phase of university life. Very shortly 
after this date, namely on February 13, 1660-61, the elder Locke 
died, set. fifty-four. Locke's only brother, Thomas, who was some 
years younger than himself, died of consumption shortly after his 
father. By the time, therefore, that Locke had fairly entered on 
his duties as an officer of his college, he was left alone of all his 
family. 

Though it was not till a much later period of his life that Locke 
published any works, his pen was at this time by no means idle. 
In i,66n he began a series of common-place books, often containing 
long articles on the subjects which were occupying his thoughts at 
the time. It is, moreover, to the period immediately preceding or 
immediately following the Restoration, that Mr. Fox-Bourne at- 
tributes an unpublished and till recently unknown Essay, entitled 
" Reflections upon the Roman Commonwealth." Many of the 
remarks in this Essay already show what we should call liberal 
opinions in religion and politics, and anticipate views long after- 
wards propounded in the works on government and toleration. 
The religion instituted by Numa is idealised, as having insisted on 
only two articles of faith, the goodness of the gods, and the neces- 
sity of worshipping them, " in which worship the chief of all was to 
be innocent, good and just." Thus it avoided " creating heresies 
and schisms," and "narrowing the bottom of religion by clogging 
it with creeds and catechisms and endless niceties about the 
essences, properties, and attributes of God." 

Of more interest, perhaps, is another unpublished treatise, 
written just after the Restoration, in which Locke asks, and answers 
in the affirmative, the following question: Whether the civil magis- 
trate may lawfully impose and determine the use of indifferent 
things in reference to religious worship. This tract seems to have 
been intended as a remonstrance with those of the author's own 
party who questioned any right in the civil magistrate to interfere 
in religious matters, and who, therefore, were ready to reject with 
disdain the assurances of compromise and moderation contained 
in the king's delaration on ecclesiastical affairs, issued at the be- 
ginning of his reign. Locke at that time, like many other moder- 
ate men, seems to have entertained the most sanguine hopes of 
pacification and good government under the rule of the new mon- 
arch. " As for myself," he writes, " there, is no one can have a 
greater respect and veneration for authority than I. I no sooner 
perceived myself in the world, but I found myself in a storm, which 
has lasted almost hitherto, and therefore cannot but entertain the 
approaches of a calm with the greatest joy and satisfaction." " I 
find that a general freedom is but a general bondage, that the pop- 
ular asserters of public liberty are the greatest ingrossers of it too, 
and not unfitly called its keepers." This reaction, however, against 
the past, and these sanguine expectations of the future, can have 
lasted but a short time. The tendencies of the new government 
were soon apparent, and the pamphlet was never published. 



LOCKE. 



*S 



CHAPTER II. 

MEDICAL STUDIES. — PUBLIC EMPLOYMENTS. — CONNEXION WITH 
SHAFTESBURY. 

Locke, at the time of his father's death and his entrance on 
college office, was in his twenty-uinth year. At the election of 
college officers on Christmas Eve, 1662, he was transferred from 
the Greek Lectureship to the Lectureship in Rhetoric, and, on the 
23rd of December in the following year, he was again transferred 
to another office. This office was the Censorship of Moral Philos- 
ophy (the Senior Censorship) ; the Censorship of Natural Philos- 
ophy (the Junior Censorship) he appears never to have held. On 
the 23rd of December, 1665, he is no longer in office, being now 
merely one of the twenty senior M.A. students, called " Theologi," 
who were bound to be in priests' orders. Of the manner in which 
Locke discharged his duties as a lecturer we have no record. He 
seems also to have served in the capacity of tutor to several under- 
graduates at this period, but of his relations to his pupils we, un- 
fortunately, know next to nothing. 

How is it that Locke, holding a clerical studentship, was not a 
clergyman ? The disturbed condition of the Church and the Uni- 
versities during the last quarter of a century had probably led to 
great laxity in the enforcement of college statutes and by-laws. 
Moreover, for a time, it would seem, he seriously contemplated 
taking the step of entering holy orders, and the authorities of his 
college would probably be unwilling to force upon him a hasty 
decision. At length, however, he finally abandoned this idea, 
deciding in favour of the profession of physic. In the ordinary 
course he would have forfeited his studentship, but he was fortu- 
nate to obtain a royal dispensation (by no means an uncommon 
mode of intervention at that time), retaining him in his place, "that 
he may s'till have further time to prosecute his studies." This 
dispensation is dated Nov. 14, 1666. 

Meanwhile, Locke had paid his first visit to the Continent. The 
occasion of it was an embassy to the Elector of Brandenburg, whose 
alliance or neutrality it was sought to obtain, in the then pending 
war with Holland. Sir Walter Vane was head of the embassy, and 
Locke, who probably owed his nomination to the interest of his old 
schoolfellow, 'William Godolphin, was appointed secretary. They 
left Englandin the middle of November, 1665, and arrived at Cleve, 
the capital of Brandenburg, on the 30th of the same month (Dec. 9, 



l$ LOCKE. 

N.S.). Here they remained for two months, the mission coming to 
nothing, in consequence of the English Government being unable 
or unwilling to advance the money which the Elector required as 
the price of his adhesion. The state-papers addressed by the Am- 
bassador of the Government at home are mainly in Locke's hand- 
writing ; but far more interesting than these are the private letters 
addressed by Locke to his friends, Mr. Strachey, of Sutton Court, 
near Bristol, and the celebrated Robert Boyle. These are full of 
graphic touches descriptive of the manners and peculiarities of the 
people among whom he found himself. Like a conscientious sight- 
seer, he availed himself of the various opportunities of observing 
their eating and drinking, attended their devotions — whether 
Catholic, Calvinist, or Lutheran — submitting himself to be bored 
by poetasters and sucking theologians, and consoled himself for the 
difficulty of finding a pair of odoxes by noting the tardiness of Ger- 
man commerce. Though he had " thought for a while to take 
leave of all University affairs," he found himself ridden pitilessly 
by an " academic goblin." 

" I no sooner was got here, but I was welcomed with a divinity dis- 
putation. I was no sooner rid of that, but I found myself up to the ears 
in poetry, and overwhelmed in Helicon." " But my University goblin left 
me not so ; for the next day, when I thought I had been rode out only to 
airing, I was had to a foddering of choppel hay or logic, forsooth ! Poor 
materia prima was canvassed cruelly, stripped of all the gay dress of her 
forms, and shown naked to us, though I must confess, I had not eyes 
good enough to see her. The young monks (which one would not guess 
by their looks) are subtle people, and dispute as eagerly for materia prima 
as if they were to make their dinner on it, and, perhaps, sometimes it is all 
their meal, for which others' charity is more to be blamed than their 
stomachs. . . . The truth is, here hog-shearing is much in its glory, and 
our disputing in Oxford comes as far short of it as the rhetoric of Carfax 
does that of Billingsgate." 

At a dinner, described with a good deal of humour, with the 
Franciscan friars, he was still pursued by his Oxford recollections : 

" The prior was a good plump fellow, that had more belly than brains ; 
and methought was very fit to be reverenced, and not much unlike some 
head of a college." 

One circumstance Locke noticed much to the advantage of the 
foreigners, namely, their good-natured toleration for each other's 
opinions. Writing to Boyle, he says — 

" The distance in their churches gets not into their houses. They 
quietly permit one another to choose their way to heaven ; for I cannot 
observe, any quarrels or animosities amongst them upon the account of 
religion. This good correspondence is owing partly to the power of the 
magistrate, and partly to the prudence and good-nature .of the people, 
who, as I find by inquiring, entertain different opinions without any secret 
hatred or rancour." 



LOCKE. j 7 

And though, like mos. Englishmen, of decided Protestant con- 
victions, travelling on the Continent for the first time, Locke in- 
dulged in a good deal of merriment at the Catholic ceremonies, he 
pays, in one of his letters to Strachey, a cheerful tribute to the 
personal worth of the Catholic priests. He had not met, he says, 
with any people so good-natured or so civil, and he had received 
many courtesies from them, which he should always gratefully ac- 
knowledge. 

Locke returned to England towards the end of February, 1665- 
66, and was at once offered the post of secretary to the Earl of 
Sandwich, who was on the point of setting out as ambassador to 
Spain. He wavered for a short time, but, though doubtful whether 
he had not " let slip the minute that they say every one has once 
in his life to make himself," he finally declined the offer. Before 
settling down again in Oxford, he spent a few weeks in Somerset- 
shire, paying probably, amongst other visits, one he had promised 
himself to Strachey at Sutton Court, " a greater rarity than my 
travels have affoided me ; for one may go a long way before one 
meets a friend." During his stay in Somersetshire, he attempted 
to try some experiments in the Mendip lead-mines with a barome- 
ter which had been sent to him for the purpose by Boyle. But the 
miners and their wives made a successful resistance. " The sight 
of the engine and my desire of going down some of their gruffs 
gave them terrible apprehensions. The women, too, were alarmed, 
and think us still either projectors or conjurors." 

At the beginning of May, Locke was again in his rooms in Ox- 
ford. He seems to have lost no time in setting to work afresh on 
the studies which might qualify him to exercise the profession 
of medicine. In his letters to Boyle, he makes frequent reference 
to chemical experiments and to collecting plants for medical pur- 
poses. 

It is an unexplained circumstance that, notwithstanding a 
letter to the Hebdomadal Board from Lord Clarendon, then 
Chancellor of the University, signifying his assent to a dispensation, 
enabling Locke to accumulate the degrees of Bachelor and Doctor 
in Medcine, he never took those degrees. The obstacle may have 
arisen from himself, or, more probably, it may have been due to 
some sinister influence on the Hebdomadal Board preventing the 
assent of that body to the required decree. Any way, it is curious 
that eleven days after the date of Lord Clarendon's letter is dated 
the dispensation from the Crown (already referred to on page 15), 
enabling him to retain his studentship, notwithstanding his neglect 
to enter holy orders. 

During the summer of 1666, we are introduced to one of the 
turning-points in Locke's life — his first acquaintance with Lord 
Shaftesbury, or, as he then was, Lord Ashley. Of the chequered 
career or the enigmatical character of this celebrated nobleman it 
is no part of my task to speak. It is enough to say that, as an ad« 

2 



1 8 LOCKE. 

vocate of religious toleration and an opponent alike of sacerdotal 
claims in the Church and absolutist principles in the State, he ap- 
pealed to Locke's warmest and deepest sympathies. The acquaint- 
ance was made through David Thomas, an Oxford physician, and 
the occasion of it was Lord Ashley's coming to Oxford to drink the 
Astrop waters. The duty of providing these waters (Astrop being 
a village at some distance from Oxford) seems to have been 
entrusted by Thomas to Locke, but, there having been some 
miscarriage, Locke waited on Lord Ashley to excuse the delay. 
"My lord," says Lady Masham, "in his wonted manner, received 
him very civilly, accepting his excuse with great easiness, and 
when Mr. Locke would have taken his leave of him, would needs 
have him to stay supper with him, being much pleased with his 
conversation. But if my lord was pleased with the company of 
Mr. Locke, Mr. Locke was yet more so with that of my Lord 
Ashley." The result of this short and apparently accidental inter- 
view was the beginning of an intimate friendship, which seems 
never afterwards to have been broken, and which exercised a deci- 
sive influence on the rest of Locke's career. 

On September 2 of this year broke out the Great Fire of Lon- 
don, which raged without intermission for three days and nights. 
Under the date of September 3 we find in Locke's " Register," 
which was afterwards published in Boyle's General History of the 
Air, this curious entry : — " Dim reddish sunshine. The unusual 
color of the air, which, without a cloud appearing, made the sun- 
beams of a strange red dim light, was very remarkakle. We had 
then heard nothing of the fire of London; but it appeared after- 
wards to be the smoke of London, then burning, which, driven this 
way by an easterly wind, caused this odd phenomenon." The 
Register, in which this entry is made begins on June 24, 1666, 
and contains, with many intermissions, the observations made by 
Locke, in Oxford and London, up co June 30, 1683, on the readings 
of the " thermoscope," the " baroscope," and the " hygroscope," 
together with the direction of the wind and the state of the weather. 
It not only affords valuable evidence of Locke's whereabouts at 
different times, but also shows the interest which he took in physi- 
cal research. 

In the early summer of 1667, Locke appears to have taken up 
his residence with Lord Ashley in London, and "from that time," 
according to Lady Masham, "he was with my Lord Ashley as a 
man at home, and lived in that family much esteemed, not only by 
my lord, but by all the friends of the family." His residence in 
Lord Ashley's family was, however, probably broken by occasional 
visits to Oxford. 

To this period of Locke's life may be assigned the unpublished 
Essay concerning Toleration, which, with so much other valuable 
matter, is now for the first time accessible to the general reader in 
Mr. Fox-Bourne's Life. This Essay, it is hot improbable, was writ- 
ten at the suggestion, or for the guidance of Lord Ashley, and so 
may have been widely circulated amongst the advocates of " toler- 



LOCKE. 19 

ation " and " comprehension " — words which were at that time in 
the mouth of every man who took any interest in religion or poli- 
tics. As I shall have to speak expressly of the published Letters 
on Toleration, which were written about twenty years later, and 
which contain substantially the same views as this earlier Essay, 
I shall not here detain the reader further than by giving him the 
general conclusions at which Locke had now arrived. These may 
be stated summarily under three heads: first, "all speculative 
opinions and religious worship have a clear title to universal toler- 
ation," and in these every man may use " a perfect uncontrollable 
liberty, without anv guilt or sin at all, provided always that it be 
all done sincerely 'and out of conscience to God, according to the 
best of his knowledge and persuasion ; " secondly, " there are some 
opinions and actions which are in their natural tendency absolutely 
destructive to human society— as, that faith may be broken with 
heretics ; that one is bound to broach and propagate any opinion 
he believes himself; and such like ; and, in actions, all manner of 
frauds and injustice — and these the magistrate ought not to toler- 
ate at all ; " thirdly, another class of opinions and actions, inas- 
much as their " influence to good or bad " depends on " the temper 
of the state and posture of affairs," " have a right to toleration so 
far only as they do not interfere with the advantages of the public, 
or serve any way to disturb the government." The practical result 
of the discussion is, that while "papists" should not "enjoy the 
benefit-of toleration, because where they have power they think 
themselves bound to deny it to others," the "fanatics," as the 
various classes of Protestant Dissenters were then called, should 
be at least " tolerated," if not " comprehended " in the national 
Church. Indeed, as to " comprehension," Locke lays down the 
general principle that " your articles in speculative opinions should 
be few and large, and your ceremonies in worship few and easy — 
which is latitudinism." 

This must have been one of the quietest and happiest periods 
of Locke's life. ■ He seems to have been unobtrusively pursuing 
his studies, and gradually making the acquaintance of the great 
world and of public affairs through the facilities which his residence 
with Lord Ashley afforded him. Both his own occupations and 
his relations to the Ashley family appear to have been of a verv 
miscellaneous kind. Medicine, philosophy, and politics engaged 
his attention by turns. To Lord Ashley and his familvhe was at 
once general adviser, doctor, and friend. In June, 1668, after con- 
sulting various other medical men, he performed on Lord Ashley a 
difficult operation for the purpose of removing an " imposthume in 
the breast," and is said thus to have saved his life. To the only 
child, Anthony Ashley, he acted as tutor. But, by the time the 
youth was seventeen. Locke was entrusted with a far more delicate 
business than his tuition. This was no less than finding him a 
wife. After other young ladies had been considered and rejected, 
Locke accompanied his charge on a visit to the Earl of Rutland, at 
Belvoir Castle, and negotiated a match with the Earl's daughter. 



2o LOCKE. 

the Lady Dorothy Manners. The match seems to have been a 
happy one ; and Locke continued his services of general utility to 
the Ashley family by acting on more than one occasion as Lady 
Dorothy's medical attendant. On the 26th of February, 1670-71, 
he assisted at the birth of a son and heir, Anthony, who subse- 
quently became third Earl of Shaftesbury, and who, as the author 
of the Characteristics, occupies a position of no inconsiderable im- 
portance in the history of English philosophy. It is on the evi- 
dence of this Earl of Shaftesbury that we learn the share taken by 
Locke in effecting the union of his father and mother. " My father 
was too young and inexperienced to choose a wife for himself, and 
my grandfather too much in business to choose one for him." The 
consequence was, that " all was thrown upon Mr. Locke, who being 
already so good a judge of men, my grandfather doubted not of his 
equal judgment in women. He departed from him, entrusted and 
sworn, as Abraham's head servant ' that ruled overall that he had,' 
and went into a far country ' to seek for his son a wife,' whom he 
as successfully found." 

Though so much of Locke's time seems to have been spent on 
medical studies and practice, he possessed no regular qualification. 
In 1670 another attempt had been made, but in vain, to procure 
him the Doctor of Medicine's degree from the University of Ox- 
ford. Lord Ashley successfully enlisted the good services of the 
Duke of Ormond, the Chancellor of the University; but on learn- 
ing the opposition of Dean Fell and Dr. Allestree, Locke de- 
sired his patron to withdraw the application. Both now and on 
the former occasion, alluded to above (p. 17), the opposition was 
probably based on Locke's tendencies, known or suspected, to 
liberal views in religion ; nor would the connexion with Lord Ash- 
ley be at all likely to mitigate the sternness of the college and uni- 
versity authorities. It had, of course, all along been open to him 
to proceed to the Doctor's degree in the ordinary way, by attending 
lectures and performing exercises ; and whether he was prevented 
from doing so by the tediousness of the process, by the hope of 
attaining the degree through a shorter and easier method, or by a 
certain amount of indecision as to whether after all he would adopt 
the medical profession, we cannot say. Afterwards, we shall see, 
he proceeded to the degree of Bachelor of Medicine, but whether 
in the ordinary course, or by dispensation, is not known. 

As connected with Locke's medical pursuits, I may here men- 
tion his friendship with Sydenham. We do not know when the 
acquaintance commenced, but Sydenham writing to Boyle, so early 
as April 2, 1668, speaks of "my friend Mr. Locke." That Syden- 
ham entertained great respect for the medical skill and judgment 
of Locke — who appears to have accompanied him in his visits to 
his patients, and, in turn, to have availed himself of Sydenham's 
assistance in attending to the Ashley household — there can be.no 
doubt. Writing to Mapletoft, their common friend, and a physi- 
cian of some eminence, in 1676, he says : " You know how thoroughly 
my method [of curing fevers] is approved of by an intimate and 



LOCKE. 21 

common friend of ours, and one who has closely and exhaustively 
examined the subject — I mean Mr. John Locke, a man whom, in 
the acuteness of his intellect, in the steadiness of his judgment, 
and in the simplicity, that is, in the excellence, of his manners, I 
confidently declare to have amongst the men of our own time few 
equals and no superior." A number of notes and papers, still ex- 
tant, attest the interest which Locke now took in medical studies, 
and the hopes with which he looked forward to improvements in 
medical practice. That the sympathy between him and Syden- 
ham was very close, is evident from the writings of both. 

But, meanwhile, he was also busy with' other pursuits. One of 
these was the administration, under Ashley, and the other " lords 
proprietors," of the colony of Carolina. In 1663 this colony had 
been granted by Charles the Second to eight " lords proprietors," 
of whom Ashley was one.- Locke, when he went to live in Ashley's 
family, appears to have become, though without arsy formal ap- 
pointment, a sort of chief secretary and manager to the association. 
A vast amount of miscellaneous business seems to have been 
transacted by him in this capacity ; but what to us would be most 
interesting, if we could determine it, would be the share he took in 
drawing up the document entitled " The Fundamental Constitutions 
of Carolina," issued on the 1st of March, 1669-70. Many of the 
articles, embodying, as they do, a sort of modified feudalism, must 
have been distasteful to Locke, and it is hardly possible to suppose 
that he was the originator of them. But perhaps we may trace his 
hand in the articles on religion, between which and his views, as 
stated in his unpublished papers written before and his published 
works written after this time, there is a large amount of correspon- 
dence. No man was to be permitted to be a freeman of Carolina 
unless he acknowledged a God, and agreed that God was to be 
publicly and solemnly worshipped. But within these limits any 
seven persons might constitute a church, provided that they up- 
held the duty of every man, if called on, to bear witness to the 
truth, and agreed on some external symbol by which such witness 
might be signified. Any one, however, who did not belong to some 
such communion was to be regarded as outside the protection of 
the law. The members of one church were not to molest or perse- 
cute those of another ; and no man was to " use any reproachful, 
reviling, or abusive language against the religion of any church or 
profession, that being the certain way of disturbing the peace, and 
of hindering the conversion of any to the truth." Amongst the 
miscellaneous provisions in this code is one strictly forbidding any 
one to plead before a court of justice for money or reward ; and 
another, enacting that " every freeman of Carolina shall have ab- 
solute power and authority over his negro slaves, of what opinion 
or religion soever." 

In 1668 Locke was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and 
in 1669 an d 1672 was placed on the Council, but he never appears 
to have taken much part in the proceedings of the society. On the 
other hand, there seem to have been certain less formal meetings 



22 



LOCKE. 



of a few friends, constituting possibly a sort of club, in the discus- 
sions of which he took a more active share. It was at one of these 
meetings that the conversation took place which led to Locke's 
writing his famous Essay (see page 127). According to a marginal 
note made by Sir James Tyrrell in his copy of the first edition, now 
in the British Museum, the discussion on this occasion turned on 
" the principles of morality and revealed religion." The date of 
this memorable meeting was, according to the same authority, the 
winter of 1673 > but according to Lady Masham, it was 1670 or 
1 67 1. Anyway, there is an entry on the main subject of the Essay 
in Locke's Common-place Book, beginning " Sic cogitavit de intel- 
lect humano Johannes Locke, anno 1671." In this brief entry the 
origin of all knowledge is referred to sense, and " sensible qualties " 
are stated to be "the simplest ideas we have, and the first object 
of our understanding " — a theory which, as we shall hereafter see, 
was supplemented in the Essay by the addition to the ultimate 
sources of knowledge of simple ideas of reflection. The Essay 
itself was not published till nearly twenty years after this date, in 
1690. 

Locke's health had never been strong, and, in the years 1670- 
72 he seems to have suffered much from a troublesome cough, 
indicative of disease of the lungs. Connected with this illness was 
a short journey which he made in France, in the suite of the Coun- 
tess of Northumberland, in the autumn of 1672. Soon after his 
return, his patron, who had lately been created Earl of Shaftes- 
bury, was appointed to the highest office of the State, the Lord 
High Chancellorship of England. Locke shared in his good for- 
tune, and was made Secretary of Presentations — that is, of the 
Chancellor's church patronage — with a salary of 300/. a year. The 
modern reader, especially when he recollects Locke's intimacy with 
Shaftesbury, is surprised to find that he dined at the Steward's 
table, that he was expected to attend prayers three times a day, 
and that, when the Chancellor drove out in state, he was accus- 
tomed, with the other secretaries, to walk by the side of the coach, 
while, as " my lord " got in and out, he "went before him bare- 
headed." The distinctions of rank were, however, far more marked 
in those days than at present, and the high officers of state were 
still surrounded with much of the elaborate ceremonial which had 
obtained in the times of the Tudors. 

To the period of Locke's excursion in France, or that immedi- 
ately succeeding it, we may refer a free translation — or rather, 
adaptation — of three of the Essais de Morale of Pierre Nicole, a 
well-known Jansenist, and the friend of Pascal and Arnauld. These 
Essays, which were translated for the use of the Countess of 
Shaftesbury, were apparently not designed for publication, and, in 
fact, were first given to the world by Dr. Hancock, in 1828. They 
are mainly remarkable as affording evidences of the depth and sin- 
cerity of Locke's religious convictions. 

Routine and official duties now occupied much of his time, and 
must have interfered sadly with his favorite studies. From dis' 



LOCKE. 23 

cussing the tangled and ambiguous politics of this period I pur- 
posely refrain; but there is one official act, recorded of Locke at 
this time, which places him in so incongruous a light that his biog- 
rapher can hardly pass it over in silence. At the opening of the 
Parliament which met on February 4, 1672-73, Shaftesbury, am- 
plifying the King's Speech, made, though it is said unwillingly and 
with much concern, his famous defence of the Dutch war, and his 
attack on the Dutch nation, culminating in the words " Delenda 
est Carthago." Locke, we are sorrow to find, though the act was 
a purely ministerial one, stood at his elbow with a written copy, to 
prompt him in case of failure. 

On the 9th of November, 1673, Shaftesbury, who had incurred 
the displeasure of the king by his support of the Test Bill, and 
who was now looked on as one of the principal leaders of the Anti- 
Catholic party, xvas summarily dismissed from the Chancellorship. 
Locke, of course, lost at the same time the Secretaryship of Pre- 
sentations ; but he did not, as meaner men might have done, try to 
insinuate himself into wealth and power through other avenues. 
" When my grandfather," says the third Earl of Shaftesbury, 
" quitted the Court, and began to be in clanger from it, Mr. Locke 
now shared with him in dangers, as before in honors and advan- 
tages. He entrusted him with his secretest negotiations, and made 
use of his assistant pen in matters that nearly concerned the State 
and were fit to be made public." 

Locke's connexion with the affairs of the colony of Carolina has 
already been mentioned. Business of this kind, owing to his rela- 
tions with Shaftesbury, multiplied upon him, and on the 15th of 
October, 1673, shortly before Shaftesbury's fall, he was sworn in 
as Secretary to the Council of Trade and Foreign Plantations, with 
a salary of 500/. a year. This office he retained, notwithstanding 
the fall of his patron, till the dissolution of the Council on the 12th 
of March, 1674-75 ; but it appears that his salary was never paid. 

On February 6, 1674-75, Locke proceeded to the degree of 
Bachelor of Medicine, having already been appointed to, or more 
probably promised, a Faculty Studentship at Ch. Ch., or, as Dean 
Prideaux, who had no love for him, puts it, " having wriggled into 
Ireland's faculty place." It is curious that his name does not ap- 
pear in the Ch. Ch. books among the Faculty Students till the 
second quarter of 1675, an d during that and the two subsequent 
quarters it is erased. The first time the name occurs without an 
erasure is in the first quarter of 1676. That there was much ir- 
regularity in the mode of appointing to College places at this time 
is evident. 

His studentship being now secure, Lord Shaftesbury having, 
for a consideration in ready money, granted him an annuity of 100/. 
a year, and his estates in Somerestshire, as well as one or two 
loans and mortgages, bringing him in a modest sum in addition, 
Locke, notwithstanding the non-payment ofhis salary as Secretary 
to the Council of Trade and Plantations, must have been in fairly 
comfortable circumstances. He was dispensed from the necessity 



24 



LOCKE. 



of practising a profession, and, being also relieved from the pressure 
of public affairs, was free to follow his bent. It is probably to the 
leisure almost enforced upon him by the weakness of his health, 
as well as by the turn which public affairs had taken, and rendered 
possible by the independence of his position, that we are indebted 
for the maturity of reflection which forms so characteristic a feature 
of his subsequent writings. 



LOCKE. 25 



CHAPTER III 

RESIDENCE IN FRANCE.— FURTHER RELATIONS WITH SHAFTES- 
BURY. — EXPULSION FROM CHRIST CHURCH. 

The state of Locke's health had long rendered it desirable that 
he should reside in a warmer climate, and his release from official 
duties now removed any obstacle that there might formerly have 
been to his absence from England. The place which he selected 
for his retirement was Montpellier, at that time the most usual 
place of resort for invalids who were able to leave their own 
country. He left London about the middle of November, 1675, 
with one if not more companions, and, after experiencing the or- 
dinary inconveniences of travel in those days of slow locomotion 
and poor inns, arrived at Paris on Nov. 24, and at Lyons on Dec. 
11. At Lyons, he remarks of the library at the Jesuits' College 
that it " is the best that ever I saw, except Oxford, being one very 
high oblong square, with a gallery round, to come at the books." 
As before, in the North of Germany, so now in the South of France, 
he is a diligent observer of everything of interest, whether in the 
way of customs, occupations, or buildings, that falls in his way. 
He reached Montpellier on Christmas Day, and, except when 
making short excursions in the neighbourhood, resided there con- 
tinuously till the early spring of 1677, a period of fourteen months. 
At Montpellier I have not been able to find any trace of him, 
either in the library or elsewhere, but his journal shows that he 
was much interested in the trade and products of the country, as 
well as in the objects which usually excite the curiosity of travellers. 
At Shaftesbury's instigation he wrote a little treatise, entitled, 
" Observations upon the Growth and Culture of Vines and Olives, 
the Production of Silk, and the Preservation of Fruits." It is 
curious that this small tract was never published till 1766. It 
enumerates no less than forty-one varieties of grapes, and thirteen 
varieties of olives, which were grown in the neighbourhood of 
Montpellier. The ceremonial and doings of the States of Lan- 
guedoc attracted Locke's attention, but he does not seem to have 
been present at their deliberations. He witnessed, however, their 
devotians at the Church of Notre Dame, and remarks that the 
Cardinal Archbishop of Narbonne, who took part in the offices, 
kept " talking every now and then, and laughing with the bishops 
next him. T ' The increasing incidence of the taxation on the lower 



2 6 LOCKE. 

and middle orders, and the growing poverty of the people, were 
topics which could hardly fail to arrest the attention of any intel- 
ligent traveller at that time. " The rent of lands in France is fallen 
one half in these few years, by reason of the poverty of the people. 
Merchants and handicraftsmen pay near half their gains." Among 
the more interesting entries in his journal are the following : — March 
18 (N.s.). " Monsieur Rennaie, a gentleman of the town, in whose 
house Sir J. Rush worth lay, about four years ago, sacrificed a child 
to the devil — a child of a servant of his own — upon a design to get 
some money. Several murders committed here since 1 came, and 
more attempted ; one by a brother on his sister, in the house where 
I lay." March 22 (n.s.) : " The new philosophy of Des Cartes 
prohibited to be taught in universities, schools, and academies." 
It is plain from the journal that Locke's mind was now busy with 
the class of questions which were afterwards treated in the Essay : 
reflections on space, the extent of possible knowledge, the objects 
and modes of study, etc., being curiously interspersed with his 
notes of travel. In respect of health, he does not seem to have 
benefited much by his stay at Montpellier, which, as before stated, 
he left in the early spring of 1677. By slow stages he travelled to 
Paris, where he joined a pupil, the son of Sir John Banks, who had 
been commended to his supervision by Shaftesbury. The tutorial 
engagement lasted for nearly two years, and, in consequence of it, 
Locke remained in France longer than he had originally intended. 
In a letter written to his old friend Mapletoft from Paris in June, 
1677, after some playful allusions to Mapletoft's love affairs, he 
says : — " My health is the only mistress I have a longtime courted, 
and is so coy a one that I think it will take up the remainder of my 
days to obtain her good graces and keep her in good humour." 
There can be no question that, at this time, the state of his health 
was a matter of very serious concern to him, and it may possibly 
have been the cause of his not marrying. While in Paris he prob- 
ably took a pretty complete holiday, seeing the sights, however, 
making occasional excursions, forming new acquaintances, and 
exercising a general supervision over the education of his young 
charge. 

At the end of June, 1678, Locke, accompanied probably by his 
pupil, left Paris with the view of making his way leisurely to Mont- 
pellier, and thence to Rome. He travelled westward by way of 
Orleans, Blois, and Angers. On the banks of the Loire he noticed 
the poverty-stricken appearance of the country. " Many of the 
towns they call bourgs ; but, considering how poor and few the 
houses in most of them are, would in England scarce amount to 
villages. The houses generally were but one story. . . . The 
gentlemen's seats, of which we saw many, were most of them 
rather bearing marks of decay than of thriving and being well kept." 
Montpellier was reached early in October, and, after a short stay 
there, he went on to Lyons, with the view of commencing his 
journey to Rome. But the depth of the snow on Mont Cenis was 
fatal to this design. Twice Locke had formed plans to visit Rome, 



LOCKE. 



2 7 



" the time set, the company agreed," and both times he had been 
disappointed. " Were I not accustomed," he says, " to have fortune 
to dispose of me contrary to my design and expectation, I should be 
very angry to be thus turned out of my way, when I made sure in a 
few days to mount the Capitol and trace the footsteps of the Scipios 
and the Caesars." He had now nothing left but to turn back to 
Paris, where he remained till the following April. Here he seems to 
have spent his time in the same miscellaneous occupations as 
before. In the journal we find the following entry, dated Feb. 
13 : — " I saw the library of M. de Thou, a great "collection of choice, 
well-bound books, which are now to be sold ; amongst others, a 
Greek manuscript, written by one Angelot, by which Stephens's 
Greek characters were first made." De Thou, the celebrated his- 
torian of his own times, is better known under his Latinized name, 
Thuanus. On a Friday, he notes : — " The observation of Lent at 
Paris is come almost to nothing. Meat is openly to be had in the 
shambles, and a dispensation commonly to be had from the curate 
without difficulty. People of sense laugh at it, and in Italy itself, 
for twenty sous, a dispensation is certainly to be had." Then 
follows an amusing story of u that Bishop of Bellay, who has writ 
so much against monks and monkery." 

"A devout lady being sick, and besieged by the Carmes, made her 
will and gave them all : the Bishop of Bellay coming to see her, after it 
was done, asked whether she had made her will ; she answered yes, and 
told him how ; he convinced her it was not well, and she, desiring lo 
alter it, found a difficulty how to do it, being so beset by the friars. The 
bishop bid her not trouble herself for it, but presently took order that 
two notaries, habited as physicians, should come to her, who being by 
her bedside, the bishop told the company it was convenient all should 
withdraw ; and so the former will was revoked, and a new one made and 
put into the bishop's hands. The lady dies, the Carmes produce their 
will, and for some time the bishop lets them enjoy the pleasure of their 
inheritance; but at last, taking out the other will, he says to them. ' Mes 
freres, you are the sons of Elijah, children of the Old Testament, and 
have no share in the New.' " 

It may have been the influence of fashion, and the eager thirst 
for reputation, which were so rife in Parisian society, that inspired, 
shortly after Locke's return to Paris, the following reflections, as 
profound as they are true : — 

" The principal spring from which the actions of men take their rise, 
the rule they conduct them by, and the end to which they direct them, 
seems to be credit and reputation, and that which, at any rate, they avoid 
is in the greatest part shame and disgrace. This makes the Hurons and 
other people of Canada with such constancy endure inexpressible tor- 
ments ; this makes merchants in one country and soldiers in another ; 
this puts men upon school divinity in one country and physics and mathe- 
matics in another ; this cuts out the dresses for the women, and makes 
the fashions for the men, and makes them endure the inconveniences of 

all Religions are upheld by this and factions maintained, and the 

shame of being disesteemed by those with whom one hath lived, and to 



28 LOCKE. 

whom one would recommend oneself, is the great source and director of 
most of the actions of men. . . . He therefore that would govern the 
world well, had need consider rather what fashions he makes than what 
laws; and to bring anything into use he need only give it reputation." 

Leaving Paris on the 22nd of April, 1679, Locke arrived, after 
his long absence, in London on the 30th of the same month. In 
the political world much had happened whilst he had been away. 
Shaftesbury, already in disgrace when he left England, had been 
imprisoned in the Tower for a year ; but, by a sudden turn of for- 
tune, was now reinstated in office as President of the newly-created 
Council. Of the circumstances which had brought about this 
change, the story of the Popish Plot, the discovery of the king's 
nefarious negotiations with Louis XIV., and the impeachment of 
Danby, it is not necessary here to speak. That Shaftesbury, when 
he saw the prospect of restoration to power, should wish to avail 
himself, as before, of Locke's advice and services, was only to be 
expected, and it was the expression of this desire which had hast- 
ened Locke's return to England. What, however, were the exact 
relations between the new Lord President and his former secretary 
during Shaftesbury's second tenure of office we are not informed. 
That the intercourse between them was close and frequent, there 
can be no doubt, and, during the summer months of 1679, Locke 
again resided in his patron's house. But the king soon felt him- 
self strong enough to reassert his own will. Under date of the 
15th of October, we read in the Privy Council Book, "The Earl 
of Shaftesbury's name was struck out of this list by his Majesty's 
command in Council." Consequently, Shaftesbury was again in 
opposition, and Locke, though still his adviser and friend, and fre- 
quently an inmate of one or other of his houses, was released from 
the pressure of official business. One of his principal cares at 
this time was the supervision of the education of Shaftesbury's 
grandson. The father, Locke's former pupil, " born a shapeless 
lump, like anarchy," seems to have been but a poor creature, and 
the little Anthony, when only three years old, was made over to 
the formal guardianship of his grandfather. Locke, though not 
his instructor, seems to have kept a vigilant eye on the boy's 
studies and discipline, as well as on his health and bodily training. 
If we may trust the memory of the third earl, writing when in 
middle life, Locke's care was extended to his brothers and sisters 
as well as to himself. " In our education," he says, " Mr. Locke 
governed according to his own principles, since published by him " 
[in the Thoughts on Education}, "and with such success that we 
all of us came to full years with strong and healthy constitutions — ■■ 
my own the worst, though never faulty till of late. I was his 
more peculiar charge, being, as eldest son, taken by my grand- 
father and bred under his immediate care, Mr. Locke having the 
absolute direction of my education, and to whom, next my immedi- 
ate parents, as I must own the greatest obligation, so I have ever 
preserved the highest gratitude and duty." The admiration and 



LOCKE. 29 

gratitude which the author of the Characteristics felt for his tutor did 
not, however, prevent him from criticising freely Locke's Theory of 
Ethics, and pronouncing it " a very poor philosophy." Of the Essay, 
as a whole, notwithstanding his vigorous protest on this particular 
point, Shaftesbury seems to have had as high an opinion as of its 
author. " It may as well qualify for business and the world as 
for the sciences and a university. No one has done more towards 
the recalling of philosophy from barbarity into use and practice of 
the world, and into the company of the better and politer sort, 
who might well be ashamed of it in its other dress. No one has 
opened a better or clearer way to reasoning." (See the Letters of 
the third Earl of Shaftesbury to a Student at the University, Let- 
ters I., VIII.) 

Of the parliament which met at Oxford on the 21st of March, 
1680-81, Locke was a close, and must have been an anxious, ob- 
server. He himself occupied his rooms at Christ Church, and for 
Shaftesbury's use he obtained the house of the celebrated mathe- 
matician, Dr. Wallis. The fullest account we have of the earlier 
proceedings of this parliament are contained in a letter from Locke 
to Stringer, Shaftesbury's secretary. It was prematurely dissolved 
on the 28th of March, Charles having succeeded in obtaining sup- 
plies from the French king instead of from his own subjects, and 
no other parliament was summoned during the remainder of the 
reign. 

So suspicious of treachery had the rival parties in the State 
now become, that most of the members of the Oxford parliament 
had been attended by armed servants, while the king was protected 
by a body of guards. The political tension was, of course, by no 
means relaxed, when it became plain that the king intended to 
govern without a parliament, and we can hardly feel surprised that 
ministers took the initiative in trying to silence their opponents. 
On the 2nd of July, 1681, Shaftesbury was arrested in his London 
house on a charge of high treason, and. after a brief examination 
before the Council, was committed to the tower. Notwithstanding 
many attempts, he failed to obtain a trial till Nov. 24, when he 
was indicted before a special commission at the Old Bailey. The 
grand jury, amidst the plaudits of the spectators, threw out the 
bill, and on the 1st of December following he was released on 
ball. Shaftesbury's acquittal was received in London, and through- 
out the country, with acclamations of joy, but his triumph was 
only a brief one. The rest of his story is soon told. In the sum- 
mer of 1682, Shaftesbury, Monmouth, Russell, and a few others 
began to concert measures for a general rising against the king. 
The scheme was, of course, discovered, and Shaftesbury, knowing 
that, from the new composition of the juries, he would have no 
chance of escape if another indictment were preferred against him, 
took to flight, and concealed himself for some weeks in obscure 
houses in the city and in Wapping. Meanwhile he tried, from his 
hiding-places, to foment an insurrection, but, when he found that 
the day which had been fixed on for the general rising had been 



3 o LOCKE. 

postponed, he determined to seek safety for himself by escaping 
to Holland. After some adventures on the way, he reached Am- 
sterdam in the beginning of December. To preserve him from 
extradition, he was on his petition admitted a citizen of Amster- 
dam, and might thus, like Locke, have lived to see the Revolution, 
but on the 21st of January, 1682-83, he died, in excruciating ago- 
nies, of gout in the stomach. 

There is no evidence to implicate Locke in Shaftesbury's design 
of setting the Duke of Monmouth on the throne, though it is dif- 
ficult to suppose that he was not acquainted with it. Any way, in 
the spring of 1681-82, he seems to have been engaged in some 
mysterious political movements, the nature, of which is unknown 
to us. Humphrey Prideaux, afterwards Dean of Norwich, in his 
gossiping letters to John Ellis, afterwards an Under-Secretary of 
State, frequently mentions Locke, who was at this time residtng in 
Oxford. These notices were probably in answer to queries from 
Ellis, who was already in the employment of the government. 
From Prideaux's letters (recently published by the Camden Society) 
I extract a few passages, interesting not only as throwing light on 
Locke's mode of life at this period in Oxford, but also as showing 
the estimate of him formed by a political enemy who was a mem- 
ber of the same college : — 

"March 14, 1681 (o. s.). — John Locke lives a very cunning and unin- 
telligible life here, being two days in town and three out ; and no one 
knows where he goes, or when he goes, or when he returns. Certainly 
there is some Whig intrigue a managing; but here not a word of politics 
comes from him, nothing of news or anything else concerning our present 
affair, as if he were not at all concerned in them. 

"March 19, 1681 (o. s). — Where J. L. goes I cannot by any means 
learn, all his voyages being so cunningly contrived. He hath in his last 
sally been absent at least ten days, where I cannot learn. Last night he 
returned ; and sometimes he himself goes out and leaves his man behind, 
who shall then to be often seen in the quadrangle, to make people believe 
his master is at home, for he will let no one come to his chamber, and 
therefore it is not certain when he is there or when he is absent. I fancy 
there are projects afoot. 

" October 24, 1682. — John Locke lives very quietly with us, and not a 
word ever drops from his mouth that discovers anything of his heart 
within. Now his master is fled, I suppose we shall have him altogether. 
He seems to be a man of very good converse, and that we have of him 
with content ; as for what else he is he keeps it to himself, and therefore 
troubles not us with it nor we him." 

After Shaftesbury's dismissal from the Presidentship of the 
Council, Locke must have had a considerable amount of leisure, 
f'he state of his health, however, and the consequent necessity 
of his frequently changing his residence, must have interfered a 
good deal with the progress of his studies. It is plain from his 
correspondence that he still took a lively interest in scientific and 
medical pursuits, nor does he appear to have yet given up the hope 
of practising medicine in a regular way. By his friends he was 



LOCKE, 



3* 



usually called Dr. Locke, and at the period of life we are now con- 
sidering he still continued to attend cases, and to make elaborate 
notes of treatment and diagnosis. 

It is probable that about this time Locke wrote the first of the 
Two Treatises on Government, which were published in 1690. 
Materials for the Essay were, undoubtedly, being slowly accumu- 
lated, and on a variety of questions, political, educational, ethical, 
theological, and philosophical, his views were being gradually ma- 
tured. Several pamphlets of a political character were, during 
these years, attributed to him, but we have his own solemn assev- 
eration, in a letter written to the Earl of Pembroke in November, 
1684, that he was not the author "of any pamphlet or treatise 
whatever, in part good, bad, or indifferent ; " that is, of course, of 
any published pamphlet or treatise, for he had already written a 
good deal in the way of essays, reflections, and commonplaces. 

After Shaftesbury's flight, Locke must have found his position 
becoming more and more unpleasant. During the year 1682 he 
had resided pretty constantly in Oxford, but we can well under- 
stand that Oxford was not then a very eligible place of residence 
for a whig and a latitudinarian. He appears to have left it for 
good at the end of June or beginning of July, 1683, and to have 
retired for a while into Somersetshire. Shortly afterwards, how- 
ever, he quitted England altogether, and when we next hear of 
him it is in Holland. That he was implicated in the Rye House 
plot is, on every ground, most improbable, notwithstanding the 
malicious insinuations of Prideaux to the contrary. Nor is there 
any evidence that he had any concern with the more respectable 
conspiracy of Monmouth, Russell, and Sidney, But in those times 
of plots and counter-plots, and arbitrary interference with the 
courts of justice, any man who was in opposition to the govern- 
ment might well be in fear for his life or liberty. Specially would 
this be the case with Locke, who was well known as a friend and 
adherent of Shaftesbury. Moreover, had he been thrown into 
prison, the state of his health was such that his life would probably 
have been endangered. His flight, therefore, affords no counte- 
nance whatsoever to the supposition that he had been engaged in 
treasonable designs against the government. It would, I conceive, 
be no stain on Locke's character, had he, in those days of mis- 
government and oppression, conspired to effect by violent means 
a change in the succession, or even a transference of the crown. 
But the fact that there is no evidence of his having done so re- 
moves almost all excuse for the tyrannical act which I am presently 
about to describe. In connection with Locke's flight to Holland, 
it may be mentioned that the idea of leaving England was by no 
means new to him. The proposal to emigrate together to Carolina 
or the He de Bourbon, possibly, however, thrown out half in jest, 
is a frequent topic in the correspondence with his French friend, 
Thoynard, during the two or three years succeeding his return 
from France. That he was becoming disgusted with the political 
game then being played in England, and despondent as to the 



32 LOCKE. 

future of his country, is evident from several letters written by him 
at this time. 

The account of Locke's life in Holland may be deferred to the 
next chapter. It will be convenient here to tell the story of his 
expulsion from Christ Church, which marks the issue of his con- 
nection with Shaftesbury, and of the part which he had so far taken 
in English politics. We have already seen that he was suspected 
of having written a number of political pamphlets against the gov- 
ernment. This suspicion was not unnatural, Locke being a lit- 
erary man and a well-known friend of Shaftesbury. After his re- 
tirement to Holland, the suspicion of his having written various 
pamphlets, supposed to have been printed in that country, and 
surreptitiously conveyed into England, was one which very nat- 
urally occurred, and, according to Prideaux, he was now specially 
suspected of having written " a most bitter libel, published in Hol- 
land in English, Dutch, and French, called a Hue and Cry after 
the Earl of Essex's murder." But the government had no proof 
of these surmises, and therefore no right to take action upon them. 
Their suspicions were, however, probably sharpened by the mali- 
cious reports of their spies in Oxford, and by the not unlikely sup- 
position that Locke was taking part in the intrigues, on behalf of 
Monmouth, now being carried on in Holland. For the latter sus- 
picion, as for the one with regard to the authorship of the pam- 
phlets, it happens that there was no justification, but it is impossi- 
ble to deny that there was some prima facie ground for it. Com- 
pared with other arbitrary acts of the reigns of Charles II. and 
James II., the measures taken against Locke do not seem excep- 
tionally severe, utterly abhorrent as they would doubtless be to the 
usages of a constitutional age. 

About fourteen or fifteen months had elapsed since his disap- 
pearance from England, when, on the 6th of November, 1684, Lord 
Sunderland signified to Dr. Fell, Dean of Christ Church, who was 
also Bishop of Oxford, the pleasure of the king that Locke should 
be removed from his studentship, asking the Dean at the same 
time to specify " the method of doing it." " The method " adopted 
by the Dean was to attach a " moneo " to the screen in the college 
ball, summoning Locke to appear on the 1st of January following, 
to answer the charges against him. After admitting that Locke, 
as having a physician's place among the students, was not obliged 
to residence, and that he was abroad upon want of health, the 
Dean, in his reply to Sunderland, proceeds to show his readiness 
to accommodate himself to the requirements of the court : " Not- 
withstanding that, I have summoned him to return home, which is 
done with this prospect, that if he comes not back, he will be liable 
to expulsion for contumacy ; if he does, he will be answerable to 
your lordship for what he shall be found to have done amiss." 
Ingenious, however, as the " method " was, it was not expeditious 
enough to satisfy the court. A second letter from Sunderland, en- 
joining Locke's immediate expulsion, was at once despatched. 
This curious document is still shown in the Christ Church library, 



LOCKE. 33 

and, as I have never seen an exact transcript of it, I here subjoin 
one: 

" To the Right Reverend Father in God, John, Lord Bishop of Oxon, Dean 
of Christ Church, and our trusty and well-beloved the Chapterthere. 

" Right Reverend Father in God, and trusty and well-beloved, we 
greet you well. Whereas we have received information of that actious 
and disloyal} behaviour of Lock, one of the students of that our Colledge ; 
we have thought fit hereby to signify our will and pleasure to you, that 
you forthwith remove him from his said student's place, and deprive him 
of all the rights and advantages thereunto belonging. For which this 
shall be your warrant. And so we bid you heartily farewell. 

"Given at our Court at Whitehall, nth day of November, 16S4, in 
the six and thirtieth year of our Reigne. 

4 'By his Majesty's command, Sunderland." 

On the 16th of November the Dean signified that his Majesty's 
command was fully executed, whereupon Lord Sunderland ac- 
quainted him that his Majesty was well satisfied with the college's 
ready obedience. 

Thus the most celebrated man, perhaps, that Oxford has shel- 
tered within her walls since the Reformation was summarily ejected 
at the dictation of a corrupt and arbitrary court. The Dean and 
Chapter might have won our admiration had they resisted the royal 
command, as was done in the next reign by the Fellows of Magda- 
len College, but it was hardly to be expected that they should risk 
their own goods and liberties in attempting to afford a protection 
which, after all, would have been almost certainly attempted in 
vain. Moreover, as Lord Grenville {Oxford and Locke) has pointed 
out, Christ Church being a royal foundation, the Dean and Chap- 
ter might well regard the king as having full power either to ap- 
point or remove any member of the foundation, and themselves as 
only registering his decree. The same power, as we have already 
seen, had been, exercised in Locke's favour by the dispensation 
from entering holy orders accorded by the crown in 1666. 

After the Revolution, Locke petitioned William the Third for 
the restitution of his studentship, but "finding," according to Lady 
Masham, that " it would give great disturbance to the society, and 
dispossess the person that was in his place, he desisted from that 
pretension." 

In Fell's first letter to Sunderland, he speaks of Locke's ex- 
treme reserve and taciturnity. As this seems to have been one of 
his distinguishing characteristics, and as the passage is otherwise 
remarkable, as showing the vigilance with which Locke was watched 
at Oxford, I give it at length : 

" I have for divers years had an eye upon him ; but so close has his 
guard been on himself that, after several strict inquiries, I may confidently 
affirm there is not any one in the College, however familiar with him, who 
has heard hjm speak a word either against or so much as concerning the 
Government; and although very frequently, both in public and in private, 



34 LOCKE. 

discourses have been purposely introduced to the disparagement of his 
master, the Earl of Shaftesbury, his party and design, he could never be 
provoked to take any notice or discover in word or look the least con- 
cern ; so that I believe there is not in the world such a master of taciturn- 
ity and passion." 

This account of Locke's reserve, as well as the • illustration 
here incidentally afforded of the abominable system of college 
espionage which then prevailed in Oxford, is amply confirmed by 
Prideaux's letters to Ellis. In the Thoughts on Education parents 
and tutors are recommended to mould children betimes to this 
mastery over their tongues. But the gift of silence, was exercised 
by Locke only in those matters where other men have no right to 
be inquisitive or curious — matters of private concernment and of 
individual opinion. In conversation on general topics, he seems 
always to have been open and copious. His taciturnity, though 
the effect of prudence and self-control, was certainly not due to any 
lack of geniality or any want of sympathy with others. 



LOCKE, 35 



CHAPTER IV. 

RESIDENCE IN HOLLAND. — THE REVOLUTION- — RETURN TO 
ENGLAND. — PUBLICATION OF THE " ESSAY " AND OTHER 
WORKS. 

Locke must have landed in Holland in one of the autumn 
months of 1683, being then about fifty-one years of age. We are 
not able, however, to trace any of his movements till the January 
of 1683-84, when he was present, by invitation of Peter Guenellon, 
the principal physician of Amsterdam, at the dissection of a lioness 
which had been killed by the intense cold of the winter. 

Through Guenellon, whom he had met during his stay in Paris, 
he must have made the acquaintance of the principal literary and 
scientific men at that time residing in or near Amsterdam. 
Amongst these was Philip van Limborch, then professor of theol- 
ogy among the Arminians or Remonstrants. The Arminians 
(called Remonstrants on account of the remonstrance which they 
had presented to the States-General in 1610) were the latitudina- 
rians of Holland, and, though they had been condemned by the 
Synod of Dort in 161 9, and had been subjected to a bitter persecu- 
tion by the Calvinist clergy for some years following, were now a 
fairly numerous body, possessing a theological ' seminary, and 
exercising a considerable influence, not only in their own country, 
but over the minds of the more liberal theologians throughout 
Europe. The .undogmatic, tolerant, and, if I may use the expres- 
sion, ethical character of the Remonstrant theology must have had 
great attractions for Locke, and he and Limborch, united by many 
common sentiments, subsequently became fast friends. 

In the autumn of 1684 Locke made a tour of the country, no- 
ting, as was usual with him, all objects and matters of interest, and 
evidently benefiting much in health by the diversion of travelling. 
Indeed, we are somewhat surprised to hear that his health derived 
more advantage from the air of Holland than "from that of Mont- 
pellier. What, however, he put down to climate was, perhaps, at 
least equally due to pleasant companionship, and to the variety of 
interests — political, commercial, literary, and theological — which the 
Dutch nation at that time so pre eminently afforded. Amongst 
the objects which attracted his attention was a sect of communistic 
mystics established near Leeuwarden. " They receive," he says, 
" all ages, sexes, and degrees, upon approbation. They live all in 
common ; and whoever is admitted is to give with himself all he 



36 LOCKE. 

has to Christ the Lord — that is, the Church — to be managed by 
officers appointed by the Church. These people, however, were 
very shy to give an account of themselves to strangers, and they 
appeared inclined to dispense their instruction only to those whom 
' the Lord,' as they say, ' had disposed to it,' and in whom they saw 
* signs of grace ; ' which ' signs of grace' seem to me to be, at last, 
a perfect submission to the will and rules of their pastor, Mr. Yonn, 
who, if 1 mistake not, has established to himself a perfect empire 
over them. For though their censures and all their administrations 
be in appearance in their Church, yet it is easy to perceive how at 
last it determines in him. He is dominus factotum j and though 
I believe they are, generally speaking, people of very good and ex- 
emplary lives, yet the tone of voice, manner, and fashion of those 
I conversed with seemed to make one suspect a little of Tartuffe." 
After Locke's experiences of the Puritan ministers in his life, the 
character of Mr. Yonn was, probably, by no means new to him, 
though he now repeated his acquaintance with it under novel cir- 
cumstances. 

In November Locke was again in Amsterdam, and here he heard 
of Dr. Fell's " moneo," summoning him back to Christ Church. 
At first it would seem that he resolved to comply with it, but the 
intelligence of the " moneo " must soon have been followed by that 
of his deprivation, and thus he was saved from the dangers which 
might have befallen him had he returned to England. In more 
ways than one, his continued absence abroad was probably an ad- 
vantage to him. " In Holland," says Lady Masham, " he had full 
leisure to prosecute his thoughts on the subject of Human Under- 
standing — a work which, in probability, he never would have finished 
had he continued in England." The winter of this year was spent 
in Utrecht and devoted to study — probably to the preparation of 
the Essay on Humaii Under standi?ig. But this quiet mode of life 
was quickly coming to an end. On the 6th of Frbruary, 1684-85, 
Charles the Second had died ; and, though the succession of the 
Duke of York was at first undisputed, Monmouth, the natural son 
of the late king, was soon persuaded by his impatient and injudi- 
cious followers to head the insurrection which resulted in his de- 
feat and execution. From Monmouth's intrigues Locke had always 
held aloof, "having no such high opinion of the Duke of Mon- 
mouth as to expect anything from his undertaking." But prudence, 
in those days of fierce political hatred and unblushing fabrications, 
was often of very little avail. Locke was well known as an ad- 
herent of Shaftesbury, and Shaftesbury had long and ardently fa- 
voured Monmouth's pretensions. Moreover, stories tending to 
discredit him with the advisers of the Court, and to connect his 
name with the plots of the other exiles, were probably circulating 
pretty freely at this time. On the 7th of May — a few days after 
Argyle had set out on his ill-starred expedition to Scotland, and 
while Monmouth was still preparing for his descent on the west 
coast of England — Colonel Skelton, who had been sent, over as a 
special envoy to the Hague, presented to the States-General a list 



LOCKE. 37 

of persons regarded as dangerous by the English Government, and 
demanded their surrender. On this list Locke s name stood last, 
having been added, we are told, by Sir George Downing, the Eng- 
lish representative at the Dutch Court, but whether or not in pur- 
suance of further instructions from home we do not know. Locke 
was at this time living at Utrecht, and it was at once arranged that 
he should be concealed in the house of Dr. Veen, of Amsterdam, 
the father-in-law of his old acquaintance, Dr. Guenellon. Though 
it was necessary, for appearance' sake, that he should keep strictly 
to his hiding-place, he does not seem to have incurred any real 
danger. The municipal authorities of Amsterdam had too great a 
horror of Popery and too much sympathy with liberty to show any 
marked zeal in carrying out the wishes of the English king; nor 
does the Prince of Orange himself appear to have been very eager 
to hunt out the fugitives, provided they went through the decent 
ceremony of concealing themselves from the ministers of justice. 
To Locke the confinement was doubtless irksome ; but he was 
solaced by the visits of his friends, especially of Limborch, and 
the monotony of his solitude was broken by a visit of a few weeks 
to Cleve. Here, however, he does" not appear to have felt so safe 
as at Amsterdam ; and, consequently, he soon returned to his old 
quarters, assuming the name of Dr. Van der Linden, as at Cleve 
he had assumed that of Lamy. Meanwhile, two of his friends in 
England — William Penn, the celebrated Quaker, and the Earl of 
Pembroke, to whom he afterwards dedicated the Essay — were mov- 
ing the king for a pardon. The latter, writing to Locke on the 20th 
of August, informs him that the king " bid me write to you to come 
over; I told him I would then bring you to kiss his hand, and he was 
fully satisfied I should." Locke, however, appears to have had little 
confidence in the king's sincerity, and, perhaps, no desire to com- 
promise any political action that might be open to him in the future 
by making formal submission to a monarch who was tolerably cer- 
tain to work out his own ruin. He still remained in concealment, 
and replied that, "having been guilty of no crime, he had no occa- 
sion for a pardon." But in May, 1686, all fear of arrest was re- 
moved by the appearance of a new proclamation of the States- 
General, in which his name was not included, and henceforth he 
was enabled to move about with perfect freedom. 

The name of Limborch, one of the friends whom Locke made 
in Holland, has already been mentioned. A long series of letters 
which passed between them, beginning with Locke's arrival at 
Cleve in September, 1685, and ending only a few weeks before his 
death, is still extant, though some are still unpublished. This cor- 
respondence is interesting, not only as throwing light on Locke's 
pursuits, but also as affording a free expression of his theological 
opinions. Thus, in a letter written to Limborch soon after his ar- 
rival at Cleve, with reference to a work recently published by Le 
Gere, he acknowledges his perplexities respecting the plenary in- 
spiration of the Bible. " If all things which are contained in the 
sacred books are equally to be regarded as inspired, without any 



33 



LOCKE. 



distinctions, then we give philosophers a great handle for doubting 
of our faith and sincerity. If, on the contrary, some things are to 
be regarded as purely human, how shall we establish the divine 
authority of the Scriptures, without which the Christian religion 
will fall to the ground ? What shall be our criterion ? Where 
shall we draw the line ?" He applies to Limborch for help. " h or 
many things which occur in the canonical books, long before I read 
this treatise, have made me anxious and doubtful, and 1 shall be 
most grateful if you could remove my scruples." From the char- 
acter of his theological writings, composed during the latter years 
of his life, it would appear that these scruples were afterwards 
either removed or set aside. 

With Le Clerc (Joannes Clericus) himself Locke first became 
personally acquainted after his return to Amsterdam in the winter 
of 1685-86. Le Clerc was still young, having been born at Geneva 
in 1657, but he had already acquired considerable reputation both 
as a philosopher and as a theologian. As a philosopher, he had at 
first embraced the doctrines of Descartes, but in after-life he leaned 
rather to those views which, a few years after the time of which I 
am writing, became famous by the publication of Locke's Essay. 
As a divine, his theology was liberal and critical beyond even that 
of the Remonstrant School. Lie "questioned the Mosaic authorship 
of the Pentateuch, regarded some of the books of the old Testa- 
ment as of purely human origin, and, in his treatment of the miracles 
and of Christian doctrine, rationalised so far as to expose himself 
to the charge of Socinianism, though he himself warmly repudiated 
the imputation. In literary activity and enterprise he yielded to no 
other author of the age. Such a man, full of energy and of novel 
views, ready to entertain and discuss any question of interest in 
theology, criticism, or philosophy, must have been peculiarly ac- 
ceptable to an exile like Locke, whose mind was now engaged with 
just the same problems that were occupying Le Clerc. The intimacy 
between the two students, though never so affectionate as that be- 
tween Locke and Limborch, soon became a close one. Though 
widely separated in age, and though differing, probably, in many of 
their specific opinions, they were conscious that they were travel- 
ling the same road — a way then little frequented — the way which 
led from the received tenets of the churches and the schools to the 
arena of free inquiry and impartial investigation. 

In the winter of 1685-86, Locke, while still hiding in Dr. Veen's 
house, employed himself in writing the famous Epistola de Toler- 
antia, addressed to Limborch. This tract was not, however, pub- 
lished till 1689, when it was almost immediately translated into 
English, Dutch, and French. Of the opinions expressed in this 
and the other letters on Toleration I shall have occasion to speak 
hereafter, when describing Locke's theological views. It must be 
recollected that, though now in his fifty-fourth year, he had as yet 
published nothing of any importance. He had, indeed, for several 
years been slowly putting together the materials for many books ; 
but it is possible that his natural modesty, together with what seemi 



LOCKE. 39 

to have been an excessive prudence, might have prevented him 
from giving any of his thoughts to the world, at least during his 
lifetime, had it not been for the fortunate circumstances which 
brought him into contact with Le Clerc. At the time when the two 
friends were introduced to one another, Le Clerc was projecting 
the Bibiiotheque Universelle, one of the earliest literary and scien- 
tific reviews, and to this Locke soon became a constant contributor. 
In the July number of 1686 appears his method of a Commonplace 
Book, under the title, Methode Nouvelle de dresser des Recucils. 
The ice was now broken, and from this time onwards we shall find 
his publications follow one another in rapid succession. 

In September, 1686, Locke moved again to Utrecht, intend- 
ing, apparently, to make a prolonged residence there; but in 
December, for some mysterious reason with which we are not 
acquainted, though connected in all probability with English 
politics, he was threatened with expulsion from the city, and was 
obliged to return to Amsterdam. It seems, from his correspondence 
with Limborch, that he did. not wish this expulsion to be talked 
about. At the same time he accepted stoically the inconveniences 
to which it put him. " These are the sports of fortune, or rather 
the ordinary chances of human life, which come as naturally as 
wind and rain to travellers." At Amsterdam he remained for two 
months as the guest of his old friend, Dr. Guenellon, and then re- 
moved to Rotterdam, where, with occasional breaks, he resided 
during the rest of his stay in Holland. This removal was undoubt- 
edly connected with the turn which English politics were now tak- 
ing at the Dutch Court Monmouth being now out of the way, the 
only quarter to which those who were weary of the Stuart despotism 
could look for redress was the House of Orange. Secret negotia- 
tions were at this time going on with the Prince and Princess, and 
there can be no doubt that Locke was taking an active share in the 
schemes that were in preparation. Rotterdam was within a short 
distance of the Hague, and also a convenient place for carrying on 
a correspondence with England as well as for meeting the English- 
men who landed in Holland. As soon as Locke arrived at Rotter- 
dam his hands seem to have been tolerably full of political busi- 
ness. Writing to Limborch in February, 1686-87, he says, "To 
politics I gave but little thought at Amsterdam ; here I cannot pay 
much attention to literature." Mr. Fox-Bourne conjectures that 
it was through Lord Mordaunt, afterwards Earl of Peterborough, 
who shortly before this time had taken up his residence in Holland, 
that Locke was brought into personal relations with the Prince and 
Princess. Any way, these relations gradually ripened into friend- 
ship, and a mutual feeling of respect and admiration seems 'soon to 
have grown up between him and the royal couple. 

While at Rotterdam, Locke resided with Benjamin Furly, an Eng- 
lish Quaker, who was a merchant of considerable wealth and a great 
book-collector. At Furly's death, in 1714, the sale-catalogue of his 
books occupied nearly 400 pages. Locke was thus at no loss for 
the instruments of his trade, and notwithstanding his preoccupation 



4 o LOCKE. 

in politics, he seems to have been working with fair assiduity at the 
Essay and on other literary subjects. In the number of the Btbli- 
otheque Universelle for January, 1687-88, appeared an abstract of 
the Essay, translated into French by Le Clerc, from a manuscript 
written by Locke, which is still extant. The epitome was an- 
nounced as communicated by Monsieur Locke, and a note was ap- 
pended inviting criticisms, if anything false, obscure, or defective 
were remarked in the system. After the review had appeared, 
separate copies of the epitome were struck off, and the opuscule, 
with a short dedication to the Earl of Pembroke, was published in 
a separate form. Locke went to Amsterdam for the purpose of 
superintending the printing of the epitome, and appears to have 
been sorely tried by the " drunken " and " lying " workmen, who, 
however, were all "good Christians,'' " orthodox believers," and 
" marked for salvation by the distinguishing L that stands on their 
door-posts, or the funeral sermon that they may have for a passport 
if they will go to the charge of it." On the 29th of February he re- 
turned to Furly's house, where he seems to have lived in great 
comfort, and on most intimate and affectionate terms with the 
family. One of the sons, a little boy of four or five years old, 
named Arent, was- a special favorite, and is playfully alluded to 
in the letters to Furly as " my little friend ! " Kindness to chil- 
dren seems always to have been one of Locke's characteristics, as 
it is of all men of simple manners and warm hearts. 

It was on the 1st of November, 1688, that William of Orange 
set out on his expedition to England. Locke still remained in Hol- 
land, and appears to have had frequent interviews with the Princess 
Mary, who was waiting till she could with safety join her husband. 
At last the word was given from England, and, after being detained 
for some time by unfavourable weather, the royal party, accom- 
panied by Locke and Lady Mordaunt, left the Hague on the nth 
of February, 1688-89. They arrived at Greenwich on the follow- 
ing day. It was with mixed feelings that Locke took leave of the 
country where he had been entertained so long, and where he had 
formed so many warm and congenial friendships. Writing to Lirr- 
borch shortly before his departure, he savs, " There are many con- 
siderations which urge me not to miss this ODportunity of sailing ; 
the expectation of my friends ; my private affairs, which have now 
been long neglected ; the number of pirates in the channel ; and 
the charge of the noble lady (Lady Mordaunt) with whom I am 
about to travel. But I trust that you will believe me when I say 
that I have found here another country, and I mi^ht almost say, 
other relations for all that is clearest in that expression— good-will, 
love, kindness— bonds that are stronger than blood— I have ex- 
perienced amongst you. It is owing to this fellow-feeling, which 
has always been shown to me by your countrymen, that, though 
absent from my own people and exposed to every kind of trouble, 
I have never yet felt sick at heart."* Still, it must have been with 

* It should be mentioned, perhaps, that the correspondence between Locke and Lim 
borch is in Latin. 



LOCKE. 



41 



a thrill of delight that, after an absence of more than five years, he 
once more stepped on the shores of his native land, and felt that a 
new era of liberty and glory had dawned for her. 

^ About a week after his arrival in England, Locke was offered, 
through Lord Mordaunt, the post of ambassador to Frederick the 
First, Elector of Brandenburgh. The letter to Lord Mordaunt, in 
which he declines the post, shows the feeble condition in which, 
notwithstanding all his precautions, his health still continued. " It 
is the most touching displeasure I have ever received from that 
weak and broken constitution of my health, which has so long 
threatened my life, that it now affords me not a body suitable to my 
mind in so desirable an occasion of serving his Majesty. . . . What 
shall a man do in the necessity of application and variety of attend- 
ance on business who sometimes, after a little motion, has not 
breath to speak, and cannot borrow an hour or two of watching 
from the night without repaying it with a great waste of time the 
next day?" But there was another reason, besides his health, 
why he could not accept a mission to the Court of Brandenburgh. 
" If I have reason to apprehend the cold air of the country, there 
is yet another thing in it as inconsistent with my constitution, and 
that is their warm drinking." It was true that he might oppose ob- 
stinate refusal, but then that would be to take more care of his own 
health than of the king's business. " It is no small matter in such 
stations to be acceptable to the people one has to do with, in being 
able to accommodate one's self to their fashions ; and I imagine, 
whatever I may do there myself, the knowing what others are doing 
is at least one half of my business, and I know no such rack in the 
world to draw out men's thoughts as a well-managed bottle. If, 
therefore, it were fit for me to advise in this case, I should think it 
more for the king's interest to send a man of equal parts that could 
drink his share than the soberest man in the kingdom." But, 
though Locke shrank from this post, the importance of which could 
hardly be exaggerated, for Frederick was the ally on whom Wil- 
liam most confided in his opposition to Louis the Fourteenth, he 
was ready to place his services at the disDOsal of the Government 
for domestic work. " If there be anything wherein I may flatter 
mvself I have attained anv degree of capacity to serve his Majesty, 
it is in some little knowledge I perhaps may have in the constitu- 
tions of my country, the temper of my countrymen, and the divi- 
sions amongst them, whereby I persuade myself I may be more 
useful to him at home, though I cannot but see that such an em- 
ployment would be of greater advantage to myself abroad, would 
but my health assent to it." The disinterested patriotism of this 
letter was only of a piece with the whole of Locke's political life. 
He was next offered the embassy to Vienna, and. in fact, invited to 
name anv diplomatic appointment which he would be prepared to 
accept : but he regarded his health as an insuperable bar to work 
of this kind at so critical a time in the history of Europe. Having 
declined all foreign employment, he was now named a Commis- 



42 LOCKE. 

sioner of Appeals, an office with small emolument and not much 
work, which he appears to have retained during the remainder of 
his life. This office seenas to have been given to him partly as a 
compensation for the arrears of salary due under the late Govern- 
ment; for, with an exhausted exchequer, it was impossible to sat- 
isfy such claims by immediate payment. 

Locke's health suffered considerably by his return to London. 
Writing to Limborch. shortly after his arrival, and complaining of 
the worry caused him by the pressure of private affairs and public 
business, the climax of all his grievances, we are hardly surprised to 
find, is the injury to his health " from the pestilent smoke of this 
city " (Malignus hujus urbis fumus). Amongst the public affairs 
which claimed his attention, the foremost, doubtless, was the at- 
tempt then being made to widen the basis of the National Church 
by a measure of comprehension, as well as to relieve of civil disa- 
bilities the more extreme or scrupulous of the sectaries by what was 
called a measure of indulgence or toleration. Locke, of course, 
with his friend Lord Mordaunt, took the most liberal side open to 
him as respects these measures ; but he complains that the epis- 
copal clergy were unfavourable to these as well as to other reforms, 
whether to their own advantage and that of the State it was for 
them to consider. Unfortunately both for the Church and nation, 
the issue of the religious struggles which were carried on, at the 
beginning of William's reign was, on the whole, in favor of the less 
tolerant party. The Comprehension Bill, after being violently 
attacked and languidly defended, was dropped altogether. The 
Toleration Bill, though passed by pretty general consent and afford- 
ing a considerable measure of relief on the existing law, was entirely 
of the nature of a compromise, and what we should now note as 
most remarkable in it is the number of its provisos and exceptions. 
No relief was granted to the believer in transubstantiation or the dis- 
believer in the Trinity. No dissenting minister, moreover, was 
allowed to exercise his vocation unless he subscribed (hirty-four out 
of the Thirtv-nine Articles, together with the greater part of two 
others. The Quakers had to make a special declaration of belief 
in the Holy Trinity and in the Divine inspiration of the Scriptures. 
The measure of toleration which Locke would have been prepared 
to grant, it need hardly be said, .far exceeded that which was 
accorded by the Act. Speaking of the law recently passed in a 
letter to Limborch on the 6th of June, he uses apologetic language. 
" Toleration has indeed been granted, but not with that latitude 
which you and men like you, true Christians without ambition or 
envy, would desire. But it is something to have got thus far. On 
these beginnings I hope are laid the foundations of liberty and peace 
on which the Church of Christ will hereafter <be established." In 
a subsequent letter, speaking again of the same law, he says, " Peo« 
pie will always differ from one another about religion, and carry on 
constant strife and war, until the right of every one, to perfect 
liberty in these matters is conceded, and they can be united in one 



LOCKE. 43 

body by a bond of mutual charity." If there be any truth in the 
tradition to which Lord King alludes, that Locke himself negotiated 
the terms of the Toleration Act, he must have regarded it simply 
as an instalment of religious liberty, the utmost that could be pro- 
cured under the circumtances, and an earnest of better things to 
come. 

On William's accession to the throne, one only of the English 
Sees was vacant, the Bishopric of Salisbury. To this he nominated 
the famous Gilbert Burnet, who had been one of his advisers in 
Holland. Locke, in one of his letters to Limborch, tells a rather 
malicious story of the new prelate. When he paid his first visit to 
the king after his consecration, his majesty observed that his hat 
was a good deal larger than usual, and asked him what was the 
object of so very much brim. The bishop replied that it was the 
shape suitable to his dignity. " I hope," answered the king, "that 
the hat won't turn your head." 

The topic that most interested Locke probably at this time, next 
to the political regeneration of his country, was the approaching 
publication of the Essay. The work must have been finished, or all 
but finished, when he left Holland. In May, 1689, he wrote the 
dedication to the Earl of Pembroke, and the printing commenced 
shortly afterwards. The proof-sheets were sent to Le Clerc. 
As before at Amsterdam, the printers appear to have caused him 
some trouble, but the book was in the booksellers' shops early in 
1690. It is a fine folio, " printed by Eliz. Holt for Thomas 
Basset at the George in Fleet Street, near St. Dunstan's Church." 
Locke received 30/. for the copy-right. But when we remember 
that Milton only lived to receive 10/. for Paradise Lost, we cannot 
feel much surprise at Locke's rate of payment. The days when 
authorship was to become a lucrative profession were still far 
distant in England. 

Previously to the publication of tH'e Essay, in the spring of 1689, 
the Epistola de Tolerantia had appeared at Gouda, in Holland ; 
but it was published anonymously, and appearently without Locke's 
knowledge, the responsibility of giving it to the world being under- 
taken by Limborch, to whom it had been addressed. On the title 
page are some mysterious letters, the invention,probably, of Lim- 
borch; '' Epistola de Tolerantia ad Clarissimum Virum T.A.R.P. 
T.O.L.A. Scripta a P.A.P.O.LL.A-." These being interpreted 
are, " Theologian Apud Remonstrantes Professorem, Tyrannidis 
Osorem, Limborchium Amstelodamensem ; " and " Pacis Amico, 
Persecutionis Osore, Joanne Lockio Anglo." Dutch and French 
translations were issued almost immediately, and the book at once 
created considerable discussion on the Continent ; but it does not 
at the first appear to have excited much attention in England. 
Locke himself was for some time unable to obtain a copy. In the 
course of the year, however, it was translated into English by one 
William Popple, an Unitarian merchant residing in London. In 
the preface the translator, alluding to recent legislation, says, " We 



44 LOCKE. 

have need of more generous remedies than what have yet been 
made use of in our distemper. It is neither declarations of indul- 
gence nor acts of comprehension, such as have as yet been prac- 
tised or projected amongst us, that can do the work. Absolute 
liberty, just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty, is the 
thing that we stand in need of." 

Locke affords a curious instance of a man who, having care- 
fully shunned publication up to a late period of life, then gave 
forth a series of works in rapid succession. It would seem as if 
he had long mistrusted his own powers, or as if he had doubted of 
the expediency of at once seeking a wide circulation for his views, 
but that, having once ventured to reveal himself to the public, 
he was emboldened, if not impelled, to proceed. Early in 1690, 
there appeared not only the Essay, but also the Two, Treatises of 
Government. These were published -anonymously, but it must 
soon have been known that Locke was their author. For reasons 
which I have given in another chapter, the former of the two trea- 
tises, which is a criticism of Sir Robert Filmer's Patriarcha, seems 
to have been written between 1680 and 1685, the latter during the 
concluding period of Locke's stay in Holland, while the English 
Revolution was being prepared and consummated. 

The translation of the Epistle on Toleration soon provoked a 
lively controversy. To one answer, that by Jonas Proast, Locke 
replied in a Second Letter concerning Toleration, signed by Phiian- 
thropus, and dated May 27, 1690. Proast, as the manner is in 
such controversies, replied again, and Locke wrote a Third Letter 
for 7 operation, again signed Philanthropus, and dated June 20, 1692. 
After many years' silence, Proast wrote a rejoinder in 1704, and to 
this Locke replied in the Fourth Letter for Toleration, which, 
however,, he did not live to publish, or, indeed, to complete. It 
appeared amongst his Posthumous Works. These Letters on 
Toleration doubtless exercised great influence in their day, and 
probably contributed, in large measure, to bring about the more 
enlightened views on this subject which in this country, at least, 
are now all but universal. 

The authorship of the Letters on Toleration, though it could 
hardly fail to be pretty generally known, was first distinctly acknowl- 
edged by Locke in the codicil, to his will. Limborch, on being hard 
pressed, had divulged it, in the spring of 1690, to Guenellon and 
Veen, but they appear, contrary to what generally happens in such 
cases, to have kept the secret to themselves. Locke, however, was 
much irritated at the indiscretion of Limborch, and for once wrote 
him an angry letter. " If you had entrusted me with a secret of 
this kind I would not have divulged it to relation, or friend, or any 
mortal being, under any circumstances whatsoever. You do not 
know the trouble into which you have brought me." It is not 
easy to see why Locke should have felt so disquieted at the pros- 
pect of his authorship being discovered, but it maybe that he hoped 
to bring about some extension of the limits of the Toleration Acf 



LOCKE. 45 

which had been passed in the preceding year, and that he feared 
that his hands might be tied by the discovery that he entertained 
what, at that time, would be regarded as such extreme views ; or it 
may have been simply that he was afraid, if his author, hip were 
once acknowledged, of being dragged into a long and irksome con- 
troversy with the bigots of the various ecclesiastical parties which 
were then endeavoring to maintain or recover their ascendancy. 



46 LOCKE. 



CHAPTER V. 

LIFE AT GATES. — FRIENDSHIPS. — FURTHER PUBLICATIONS. 

Shortly after Locke returned to England, he settled down in 
lodgings in the neighbourhood of what is now called Cannon Row, 
Westminster. But the fogs and smoke of London then, as now, 
were not favourable to persons of delicate health, and he seems to 
have been glad of any opportunity of breathing the country air. 
Amongst his places of resort were Parson's Green, the suburban 
residence of Lord Mordaunt, now Earl of Monmouth, and Oates, a 
manor-house, in the parish of High Laver, in Essex, the seat of Sir 
Francis and Lady Masham, situated in a pleasant pastoral country, 
about twenty miles from London. Lady Masham had become 
known to him as Damaris Cudworth, before his retreat to Holland, 
and it is plain that from the first she had excited his admiration and 
esteem. She was the daughter of Dr. Ralph Cudworth, Master of 
Christ's College, Cambridge, author of The True Intellectual Sys- 
tem of the Universe, and of a posthumous work, still better known, 
A Treatise concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality. The 
close connexion which, in the latter years of his life, subsisted 
between Locke, the foremost name amongst the empirical philoso- 
phers of modern times, and the daughter of Cudworth, the most 
uncompromising of the a priori moralists and philosophers of the 
seventeenth century, may be regarded as one of the ironies of 
literary history. Damaris Cudworth, Inheriting her father's tastes, 
took great interest in learning of all kinds, and specially in philoso- 
phy and theology. There was one point of community between 
her father and Locke besides their common pursuits, namely, the 
wide and philosophical view which they both took of theological 
controversies. Cudworth belonged to the small but learned and 
refined group of Cambridge Platonists or Latitudinarians, as they 
were called, which also numbered Henry More, ]ohn Smith, Cul- 
verwell, and Whichcote. Liberal and tolerant Churchmanship in 
those days, when it was so rare, was probably a much closer bond 
of union than it is now, and the associations which she had formed 
with her father's liberal, philosophical, and devout spirit must have 
helped to endear Locke to the daughter of Dr. Cudworth. During 
Locke's absence from England Damaris. Cudworth had married, as 
his second wife, Sir Francis Masham, an amiable and iiospitabla 



LOCKE. 47 

country gentleman, who seems to have occupied a prominent posi- 
tion in his county. With them lived Mrs. Cudworth, the widow of 
Dr. Cudworth, one little son, Francis, and a daughter by the former 
marriage, Esther, who was about fourteen when Locke commenced 
his visits to the family. From the first he seems to have had some 
idea of settling down at Oates, " making trial of the air of the place," 
than which, as Lady Masham tell us, " he thought none would be 
more suitable to him." After a very severe illness in the autumn 
of 1690, he spent several months with the Mashams, and appears 
then to have formed a more definite plan of making Oates his home. 
But, though his hospitable friends gave him every assurance of a 
constant welcome, he would only consent to regard it as a perma- 
nent residence on his own terms, which were that he should pay 
his share of the household expenses. With true kindness and 
courtesy, Sir Francis and Lady Masham, at last, in the spring of 
1691, agreed to this arrangement, and " Mr. Locke then," says Lady 
Masham, " believed himself at home with us, and resolved, if it 
pleased God, here to end his days — as he did." Devoted and 
sympathetic friends, a pleasant residence, freedom from domestic 
or pecuniary cares, and the pure fresh air of the country seem to 
have afforded him all the enjoyment and leisure which we could 
have wished for him. After having had more than his share of the 
storms of life, he had at last found a quiet and pleasant haven 
wherein to enjoy the calm and sunshine of his declining years. 
Occasionally, and especially during the summer, he visited London, 
where, at first, he retained his old chambers at Westminister, 
moving afterwards to Lincoln's Inn Fields. But Oates was now 
his home, and it continued to be so to the end of his life. 

Locke was always an attached friend, and we have seen already 
how many warm friendships he had formed in youth and middle 
age. At the present time, besides Limborch, Le Clerc, Lord Mon- 
mouth, and the Mashams, we may mention among his more inti- 
mate friends Lord Pembroke, the young Lord Ashley, Somers, 
Boyle, and Newton. Lord Pembroke (to whom the Essay is dedi- 
cated in what we should now regard as a tone of overwrought com- 
pliment) opened his town house for weekly meetings in which, 
instead of political and personal gossip, things of the mind were 
discussed. These conversations, " undisturbed by such as could 
not bear a part in the best entertainment of rational minds, free 
discourse concerning useful truths," were a source of great enjoy- 
ment to Locke during his London residence. It was through his 
introduction that Lord Pembroke, when sent on a special mission 
to the Hague, made the acquaintance, which afterwards ripened 
into friendship, of Limborch and Le Clerc. 

The correspondence between Locke and Limborch, while Lord 
Pembroke was in Holland, reveals to us the curious fact that there 
was no organised carrying trade between England and Holland at 
that time. On returning, the Earl, or his Secretary; was commis- 
sioned to bring back a pound of tea and copies of the Acta Ertidi 
toru?n. The tea must be had at any price. " I want the best tea," 



48 LOCKE. 

Locke writes to Limborch, " even if it costs forty florins a pound ; 
only you must be quick, or we shall lose this opportunity, and I 
doubt whether we shall have another." The price that he was 
ready to pay for a pound jf tea would be about 9/. at the present 
value of money. But tea at that' time was regarded rather as a 
medicine than a beverage. 

Young Lord Ashley, it will be recollected, had, like his father, 
been under the charge of Locke when a child. After being at 
school for some years at Winchester, and spending some time in 
travelling on the Continent, he was now again in London, living in 
his father's house at Chelsea. It is plain that the young philoso- 
pher saw a good deal of his " foster-father," as he called him, and 
they must often have discussed together the questions which were 
so interesting to them both. Ashley, moreover, who was already 
beginning .to solve the problems of philosophy in his own way, 
addressed a number of letters to Locke, freely, but courteously and 
good-humouredly, criticising his master's views. 

Sir John Somers, now Solicitor-General, and successively At- 
torney-General, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, and Lord Chancel- 
lor, with the title of Lord Somers, had been known to Locke be- 
fore his retirement to Holland. They were both of them attached 
to the Shaftesbury connexion, and hence, though Somers was 
nearly twenty years the junior, they had probably already seen a 
good deal of each other when William ascended the throne. On 
Lock's return to England, he found Somers a member of the Con- 
vention Parliament. The younger man, both when he was a rising 
barrister and a successful minister, seems frequently to have con- 
sulted the elder one, and Locke's principles of government, finance, 
and toleration must often have exerted a considerable influence 
both on his speeches and his measures. Nor had Locke any 
reasons to be ashamed of his teaching. " Lord Somers," says 
Horace Walpole, " was one of those divine men who, like a chapel 
in a palace, remain unprofaned, while all the rest is tyranny, cor- 
ruption, and folly." It was, perhaps, through Somers that Locke 
made the acquaintance of another great and wise statesman, 
Charles Montague, subsequently Lord Halifax, with whom, at least 
during the latter years of his life, he had much political connexion, 
and by whom he was frequently called into counsel. 

The acquaintance between Locke and Newton, of whom New- 
ton was the junior by more than ten years, most probably began 
before Locke's departure to Holland. Both had then for some 
time been members of the Royal Society, and both were friends of 
Boyle. The first positive evidence, however, that we have of their 
relations is afforded by a paper, entitled " A Demonstration that 
the Planets, by their gravity towards the Sun, may move in 
Eclipses," and endorsed in Locke's handwriting, " Mr. Newton, 
March, 1689." In the summer or autumn of the same year, prob- 
ably, was written the epistle to the reader prefixed to the Essay. 
In that occurs the following passage, expressing no doubt Locke's 
genuine opinion of the great writers whom he names : — " The Con? 



LOCKE. 



49 



monwealth of learning is not at this time without master-builders, 
whose mighty designs in advancing the sciences will leave lasting 
monuments to the admiration of posterity ; but every one must not 
hope to be a Boyle or a Sydenham, and in an age that produces such 
masters as the great Huygenius and the incomparable Mr. Newton, 
with some other of that strain, 'tis ambition enough to be employed 
as an under-labourer in clearing ground a little, and removing some 
of the rubbish that lies in the way to knowledge." Locke interested 
himself long and warmly in attempting to obtain for Newton some 
lucrative appointment in London. Newton's letters occasionally 
betray querulousness, but there can be no reason to suppose that 
Locke at all flagged in his efforts, and ultimately, with the assist- 
ance of Lord Monmouth, Lord Halifax, and others, they proved 
successful. Newton was, in course of time, appointed Warden, 
and then Master of the Mint. In January, 1690-91, the philoso- 
pher and the mathematician met at Oates. Their conversation 
there probably turned chiefly on theological topics, as was the case 
with most of their correspondence afterwards. Newton was greatly 
interested not only in theological speculation, but in the interpreta- 
tion of prophecy and Biblical criticism, on both of which subjects 
works by him are extant. In 1690 he wrote a manuscript letter to 
Locke, entitled " An Historical Account of Two Notable Corrup- 
tions of Scripture in a Letter to a Friend," the texts criticised be- 
ing 1 John v. 7, and 1 Timothy iii. 16. The corruption of the 
former of these texts is now almost universally, and that of the* lat- 
ter very generally, acknowledged ; but so jealous of orthodoxy, in 
respect of anything which seemed to affect the doctrine of the 
Trinity, was public opinion at that time, that Newton did not dare 
to publish the pamphlet. Locke, who was meditating a visit to 
Holland, was, by Newton's wish, to have taken it over with him, 
and to have had it translated into French, and published anony- 
mously. But the intended visit fell through, and Locke sent the 
manuscript over to Le Clerc. So timid, however, was Newton, 
that he now tried to recall it. " Let me entreat you," he writes to 
Locke, " to stop the translation and impression of the papers as 
soon as you can, for I desire to suppress them." Le Clerc thought 
more nobly and more justly that " one ought to risk a little in order 
to be of service to those honest folk who err only through igno- 
rance, and who, if they get a chance, would gladly be disabured of 
their false notions." The letter was not published till after its 
author's death, and at first it appeared only in an imperfect form. 
In Bishop Horsley's edition of Newton it is printed complete. 
Newton's unpublished writings leave no doubt that he did not ac- 
cept the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, and it may have been his 
consciousness of this fact which made him so afraid of being known 
to be the author of what was merely a critical exercitation. But 
we must recollect that at this time Biblical criticism was unfamiliar 
to the majority of divines, and that to question the authenticity of 
a text was generally regarded as identical with doubting the doc- 
trine which it was supposed to illustrate. One of the other sut> 

4 



5° 



LOCKE. 



jects on which Locke and Newton corresponded was a parcel of 
red earth which had been left by Boyle, who died on Dec. 30, 1691, 
to Locke and his other literary executors, with directions for turn- 
ing it into gold. Locke seems to have had some faith in the 
alchemistic process, but it is plain that Newton had none. He was 
satisfied that " mercury, by this recipe, might be brought to change 
its colors and properties, but not that gold might be multiplied 
thereby." Some workmen of whom he had heard as practising 
the recipe had been forced to other means of living, a proof that 
the multiplication of gold did not succeed as a profession. Occa- 
sionally, owing to Newton's nervous and irritable temper, which at 
one time threatened to settle down into a fixed melancholy, there 
seems to have been some misunderstanding of Locke on his part, 
but it is satisfactory to know that the two greatest literary men of 
their age in England, if not in Europe, lived, almost without inter- 
ruption, in friendly and N even intimate relations with each other. 

The close intercourse between Boyle and Locke, which dated 
from their Oxford days, seems to have been kept up till the time 
of Boyle's death. Locke made a special journey to London to visit 
him on his death-bed, and was, as we have seen, left one of his lit- 
erary executors. The editing of Boyle's Ge?teral History of the 
Air had already been committed to Locke, and seems to have oc- 
cupied much of his time during the year 1691. 

Of Locke's less-known friends, Dr. David Thomas must have 
died between 1687, when there is a letter from him to Locke, and 
1700, when Locke speaks of having outlived him. Sir James Tyr- 
rell, another old college friend, usually spoken of in Locke's corre- 
spondence as Musidore, was in communication with him as late as 
April, 1704, the year of his death. He had, as already stated, been 
present at the " meeting of five or six friends " in Locke's cham- 
ber, which first suggested the composition of the Essay. 

Edward Clarke, of Chipley, near Taunton, was another friend of 
old standing. He was elected member for Taunton in King Wil- 
liam's second parliament, and from that time forward resided much 
in London. This circumstance probably deepened the intimacy 
between the two friends ; at all events, during the remainder of 
Locke's life they are constantly associated. Locke advised Clarke 
as to the education of his children, one of whom, Betty, a little girl 
now about ten years old, seems to have been regarded by him with 
peculiar affection ; in his letters he constantly speaks of her as 
"Mrs.' Locke" and his "wife." The playful banter with which 
Locke treated his child friends affords unmistakable evidence of 
the kindness and simplicity of his heart. 

William Molyneux, who for many years represented the Uni- 
versity of Dublin in the Irish Parliament, referred to in the second 
edition of the Essay as " that very ingenious and studious promoter 
of real knowledge, the worthy and learned Mr. Molyneux," "this 
thinking gentleman whom, though I have never had the happiness 
to see, I am proud to call my friend," first became acquainted with 
Locke in 1692. In his Dioptrica JVova, published in that year, he 



LOCKE. 



5* 



had paid Locke a graceful, if not an exaggerated, compliment. " To 
none do we owe, for a greater advancement in this part of philos- 
ophy," he said, speaking of logic, "than to the incomparable Mr. 
Locke, who hath rectified more received mistakes, and delivered 
more profound truths, established on experience and observation, 
for the direction of man's mind in the prosecution of knowledge, 
which I think may be properly termed logic, than are to be met with 
in all the volumes of the ancients. He has clearly overthrown all 
those metaphysical whimsies which infected men's brains with a 
spice. of madness,. whereby they feigned a knowledge where they 
had none, by making a noise with sounds without clear and distinct 
significations." Locke was pleased with the compliment, and a 
letter acknowledging the receipt of Molyneux's book was the 
beginning of a long correspondence between them, which ended 
only with the early death of Molyneux, at the age of forty- 
two, in 1698. For nearly six years the friends, though in constant 
correspondence, had never seen each other, Molyneux residing in 
Dublin, and suffering, like Locke, from feeble health, which pre- 
vented him from crossing the Channel. But the feeling of affec- 
tion seems soon to have become as intense, notwithstanding Aris- 
totle's dictum that personal intercourse is essential to the contin- 
uance of friendship, as if they had lived together all their lives. In 
his second letter to Molyneux, dated Sept. 20, 1692, Locke says : 
" You must expect to have me live with you hereafter. For meet- 
ing with but few men in the world whose acquaintance I find much 
reason to covet, I make more than ordinary haste into the familiar- 
itv of a rational inquirer after and lover of truth, whenever I can 
light on any such. There are beauties of the mind as well as of the 
body, that take and prevail at first sight ; and, wherever I have met 
with this, I have readily surrendered myself, and have never yet 
been deceived in my expectation." Molyneux had thought of 
coming over to England on a visit to Locke in the summer of 1694. 
Locke, in a letter written in the following spring, after depreciating 
the risks to which his journey might expose him, adds : — " And yet, 
if I may confess my secret thoughts, there is not anything which 
I would not give that some other unavoidable occasion would draw 
you into England. A rational, free-minded man, tied to nothing 
but truth, is so rare a thing that I almost worship such a friend ; 
but, when friendship is joined to it, and these are brought into a 
free conversation, where they meet and can be together, what is 
there can have equal charms ? I cannot but exceedingly wish for 
that happy day when I may see a man I have so often longed to 
have in my embraces. . . . You cannot think how often I regret 
the distance that is between us ; I envy Dublin for what I every 
day want in London." In a subsequent letter, written in 1695, he 
writes : — " I cannot complain that I have not my share of friends 
of all ranks, and such whose interest, assistance, affection, and 
opinions too, in fit cases, I can rely on. But methinks, for all this, 
there is one place vacant that I know nobody would so well fill as 
yourself; I want one near me to talk freely with " de quolibet 



52 LOCKE. 

ente," to propose to the extravagancies that rise in my mind ; one 
with whom I would debate several doubts and questions to see 
what was in them." Thomas Molyneux, the brother of William, 
a physician practising in Dublin, had met Locke during his stay in 
Holland. They shared a common admiration for Sydenham, and 
the correspondence with William Molyneux revived their friend- 
ship, though it never attained to nearly the same proportions as 
that between Locke and the other brother. A passage on what 
may be called the Logic of Medicine, in one of Locke's letters to 
Thomas Molyneux, is worth quoting : — " What we know of the 
works of nature, especially in the constitution of health and the 
operations of our own bodies, is only by the sensible effects, but 
not by any certainty we can have of the tools she uses or the ways 
she walks by. So that there is nothing left for a physician to do 
but to observe well, and so, by analogy, argue to like cases, and 
thence make to himself rules of practice." 

Nov. 7, 1691, is the date of the dedication of the Tract entitled 
" Some considerations on the Lowering of Interest and Raising the 
Value of Money in a letter sent to a Member of Parliament, 1691 ." 
This letter was published anonymously in the following year. The 
member of Parliament was undoubtedly Sir John Somers, who had 
"put" the author " upon looking out his old papers concerning the 
reducing of interest to 4 per cent., which had so long," nearly 
twenty years, " lain by, forgotten." The time to which Locke re- 
fers must be the year 1672, when the Exchequer was closed, that is 
to say, all payments to the public creditors suspended for a year, 
and the interest on the Bankers' advances reduced to six per cent. 
This nefarious act of spoliation, which caused wide-spread ruin and 
distress, was devised while Shaftesbury was Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer, but the main blame in the transaction probably attaches 
to Clifford. " The notions concerning coinage," which are embod- 
ied in the second division of the pamphlet, had been put into 
writing and apparently shown to Somers about twelve months be- 
fore the date of the letter. On the occasion and contents of this 
pamphlet, as well as of Locke's other tracts on Finance, I shall 
have an opportunity of speaking in subsequent chapters. 

Many of my readers will sympathize with Locke in his com- 
plaints of the waste of his time during this autumn. Writing to 
Limborch, on Nov. 14, he says, " I know not how it is, but the 
pressure of other people's business has left me no time or leisure 
for my own affairs. Do not suppose that 1 mean public business. 
I have neither health, nor strength, nor knowledge enough to at- 
tend to that. And when I ask myself what has so hampered and 
occupied me during the last three months, it seems as if a sort of 
spell had been thrown on me, so that I have got entangled first in 
one business and then in another, without being able to avoid it, 
or, in fact, to foresee what was coming." Locke was pre-eminently 
a good-natured man, and, like many other men before and since, he 
had to pay the penalty of good-nature by doing a vast amount of 



LOCKE. 53 

other people's business, often probably with scant acknowledg- 
ment. One of the occupations in which he was engaged may have 
been doctoring the household at Oates and advising medically for 
his friends at a distance ; but in business of this kind, though he 
may have grudged the time it consumed, he seems always to have 
taken special delight. 

In the summer of 1692 he spent a considerable time in London. 
His main business there seems to have been to see the Third 
Letter on Toleration through the press. But he was now, as ever, 
to do work for his friends. Thus he obtained for Limborch the 
permission to dedicate the book which he had so long been prepar- 
ing, the Historia Inouisitionis, to Tillotson, then Archbishop of 
Canterbury. Limborch evidently set great store on this privilege. 
Of Tillotson, Locke seems to have entertained a very high opinion ; 
which, indeed, was thoroughly well deserved. " In proportion to 
his renown and worth is his modesty." Tillotson was not one of 
those liberal Churchmen whom promotion makes timid, or cold to 
their former friends. He was maligned by an unforgiving and un- 
scrupulous faction, more, perhaps, than any other man of that age, 
but he always retained the courage of his opinions. 

Locke's health seems to have suffered much during the winter 
of 1692-93. But he still occupied himself with literary work. 
While in Holland, he had corresponded frequently with Clarke on 
the education of his children. Yielding to the solicitation of many 
of his friends, especially William Molyneux, he now reduced the 
letters to the form of a treatise, which was published in July, 1693, 
under the title Some Thoughts Concerning Education. Tlie dedi- 
cation to Clarke bears date in the previous March, and is signed 
by Locke, though his name does not appear on the title-page. The 
most serious work, however, in which he was now engaged, was 
the preparation of a second edition of the Essay. The first edition 
seems to have been exhausted in the autumn of 1692. On the al- 
terations and additions introduced into the second edition, there is 
an interesting correspondence with Molyneux, ranging from Sept. 
20, 1692, to May 26, 1694, when the new edition, notwithstanding 
the "slowness of the press," was printed and bound, and ready to 
be sent " to Locke's Dublin correspondent. Besides suggestions 
in detail, such as those touching the questions of liberty and per- 
sonal identity, Molyneux urged Locke to undertake a separate work 
on Ethics, a suggestion which for a time he entertained favourably, 
but which, owing partly, perhaps, to his idea that the principles and 
rules of morality ought to be presented in a demonstrative form, 
was never carried out. Though he does not seem to have doubted 
that " morality might be demonstrably made out," yet whether he 
was able so to make it out was another question. '• Every one 
could not have demonstrated what Mr. Newton's book hath shown 
to be demonstrable." He was, however, ready to employ the first 
leisure he could find that way. But the treatise never proceeded 
beyond a few rough notes. Another reason assigned, at a later 
period, for not more seriously setting about this task was that " the 



54 LOCKE. 

Gospel contains so perfect a body of ethics, that reason maybe ex« 
cused for that inquiry, since she may find man's duty clearer and 
easier in revelation than in herself." This argument shows at once 
the sincerity of Locke's religious convictions, and the inadequate 
conception he had formed to himself of the grounds and nature of 
Moral Philosophy. Another suggestion made by Molyneux was 
that, besides a second edition of the Essay, Locke should bring out, 
in accordance with the main lines of his philosophy, another & work 
forming a complete compendium of logic and metaphysics for 
the use of University Students. No one can regret that the 
author of the Essay did not adopt this advice. Apropos of 
this suggestion, Molyneux tells Locke that Dr. Ashe, then Pro- 
vost of Trinity College, Dublin, "was so wonderfully pleased and 
satisfied with the work, that he has ordered it to be read by the 
bachelors in the college, and strictly examines them in their pro- 
gress therein." From that time onwards the Essay seems to have 
held its ground as a class-book at Dublin. The reception which it 
met with at first from the authorities of Locke's own University, as 
we shall see presently, was widely different. In May, 1694, the 
second edition was on sale, and was quickly exhausted. The third 
edition, which is simply a reprint of the second, appeared in the 
following year. One more edition, the fourth, dated 1700, but 
issued in the autumn of 1699, appeared during Locke's lifetime. In 
it there are important alterations and additions, including two new 
chapters' — that on Enthusiasm, and the very important one at the 
end of the second book, on the Association of Ideas. A Latin 
translation of the Essay by Richard Burridge, an Irish Clergyman, 
was published at London, in 1701 : and a French translation by 
Pierre Coste, who was a friend of Le Clerc, and had been acting 
for some time as tutor to young Frank Masham at Amsterdam, in 
1700. John Wynne, Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, and subse- 
quently Bishop of St. Asaph, published an abridgment for the use 
of University Students, in 1696. Wynne had a large number of 
pupils, and the compendium of Locke's philosophy appears to have 
obtained rapid circulation among the younger students in Oxford, 
only, however, as we shall soon see, to encounter the opposition of 
the authorities. 

It is notable that all the important alterations and additions 
made in the second edition of the Essays were printed on separate 
slips, and issued, without charge, to those who possessed the first. 
Sir James Tyrrell's copy of the first edition, with these slips pasted 
in, is in the British Museum ; and that of William Molyneux in* 
the Bodleian. In sending to Molyneux the second edition, Locke 
had also forwarded the slips to be pasted in the first, which would 
" help to make the book useful to any young man ; " but whether 
Molyneux gave the copy now in the Bodleian to " any young man," 
and, if so, who the fortunate young man was, we do not learn. 

The first writer who had taken up his pen against Locke was 
John Norris, the amiable and celebrated Vicar of Bemerton, a 
religious and philosophical mystic, whose works are even still in 



LOCKE. 55 

repute. Norris was a disciple of Malebranche, and his attack 
seems to have had the effect of leading Locke to make a careful 
study of the theories of the French philosopher. The result was 
two tractates — one entitled Remarks upon some of Mr. Norris' s 
Books; the other, An Exainination of Pere Malebranche 's Opin- 
ion of seeing all things in God. The latter is much the more con- 
siderable production of the two, and is mainly remarkable as show- 
ing that Locke saw clearly that the conclusions, subsequently 
drawn by Berkeley, must follow from Malebranche's premises. 
Neither of these tracts was published till after Locke's death. The 
reasons assigned by him for not publishing his criticism of Male- 
branche are characteristic : " I love not controversies, and have a 
personal kindness for the author." 

Locke's literary activity during the years 1689-95 appears ex- 
cessive ; but we must recollect that he had already accumulated a 
vast amount of material, and that, during the latter part of that 
time at least, he must have enjoyed considerable leisure in his 
country retirement. In the early months of 1695, he was mainly 
occupied with a new subject — the Essay on the Reasonableness of 
Christianity as delivered in the Scriptures. Though this work 
was designed to establish the supernatural character of the Chris- 
tian revelation, and its importance to mankind, it by no means sat- 
isfied the canons of a strict orthodoxy. Some of the more myste- 
rious and less intelligible doctrines of the Christian Church, if not 
denied, were at least represented as unessential to saving faith. 
Hence it at once provoked a bitter controversy. " The buz, the 
flutter, and noise which was made, and the reports which were 
raised," says its author, " would have persuaded the world that it 
subverted all morality, and was designed against the Christian 
religion. I must confess, discussions of this kind, which I met 
with, spread up and down, at first amazed me ; knowing the sin- 
cerity of those thoughts which persuaded me to' publish it, not 
without some hope of doing some service to decaying piety and 
mistaken and slandered Christianity." The first assailant was John 
Edwards, a former Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, who 
in a violent pamphlet, entitled Thoughts concerning the Causes and 
Occasions of Atheism, included the Reasonableness of Christian- 
ity in his attack, and insinuated that Locke was its author by 
affecting to disbelieve it The book was described as "all over 
Socinianized," and a Socinian, if not an atheist, is, according to 
Edwards, "one that favours the cause of atheism." That there 
was much similarity between the apparent opinions of Locke and 
the doctrines of Faustus Socinus himself, though not of Socinus's 
more extreme followers, who were also popularly called Socinians, 
admits of no doubt. But the charge of favouring atheism can only 
have been brought against a man who regarded the existence of 
God as " the most obvious truth tha| reason discovers," and who 
appears never to have questioned the reality of supernatural inter- 
vention, from time to time, in the world's history, because it hap- 
pened to be the roughest stone that could be found in the contro- 



56 LOCKE. 

versial wallet. Locke replied to Edwards with pardonable asperity, 
in a tract entitled A Vindication of the Reasonableness of Chris ti- 
anity. Edwards, of course, soon replied to the reply, and attacked 
Locke more violently than ever in his Socinianism Unmasked. No 
rejoinder followed, but the adversary was not to be let off on such 
easy terms. Another shot was fired, and The Socinian Creed, as 
venomous and more successful than the Socinianism Unmasked, 
provoked A Second Vindication. This lengthy pamphlet, far more 
elaborate than the first, must have occupied much of Locke's time. 
It did not appear till the spring of 1697. Edwards returned to the 
charge; but, fortunately, Locke had the wisdom and courage to 
refrain from carrying on the fight. Bitter as the feeling against 
Locke must have been in many clerical circles at this time, there 
were not wanting, even amongst the clergy, those who sympathised 
with his views. Mr. Bolde, a Dorsetshire clergyman, came for- 
ward to defend him against Edwards. And Molyneux, writing on 
the 26th of September, 1696, says, " As to the Reasonableness of 
Christianity, I do not find but it is very well approved of here 
amongst candid, unprejudiced men, that dare speak their thoughts. 
I'll tell you what a very learned and ingenious prelate said to me 
on that occasion. I asked him whether he had read that book, 
and how he liked it. He told me very well; and that, if my friend 
Mr. Locke writ it, it was the best book he ever laboured at ; ' but,* 
says he, 'if I should be known to think so, I should have my 
lawns torn from my shoulders.' But he knew my opinion afore- 
hand, and was, therefore, the freer to commit his secret thoughts 
in that matter to me." We may not be disposed to think highly of 
the " very learned and ingenious prelate ; " but the story shows, as 
indeed we know from other sources, to what a volume of opinion, 
both lay and clerical, on the expediency of presenting Christianity 
in a more "reasonable " and less mysterious and dogmatic form, 
Locke's treatise had given expression. Men were anxious to re- 
tain their beliefs in the supernatural order of events, but they were 
equally anxious to harmonise them with what they regarded as the 
necessities of reason. The current of " Rationalism " had set in. 
It is satisfactory to know that, amidst all these controversial 
worries, which must have been most distasteful to a man of his 
habits and temper, Locke enjoyed the solace of pleasant compan- 
ionship and domestic serenity. He was thoroughly at home at 
Oates, and Lord Monmouth and his otlier friends in and near 
town seem always to have been ready to accord him a hearty wel- 
come, whenever he cared to pay them a visit. His little " wife," 
Betty Clarke, and her brother used occasionally to come on visits 
to him at the Mashams, and he seems to have taken great delight 
in the society of Esther Masham, who was now rapidly growing 
up to womanhood. " In raillery," wrote this lady many years 
afterwards, " he used to ca%me his Laudabridis, and I called him 
my John." The winters of 1694-95 and 1695-96 were unusually long 
and severe, and in both of them Locke appears to have been under 
apprehensions that his chronic illness might terminate in death. 



LOCKE. 57 

It may here be noticed that in the summer of 1694 Locke be- 
came one of the original proprietors of the Bank of England, which, 
having been projected by a merchant named William Paterson, 
had been established by Act of Parliament in April of that year, 
and invested with certain trading privileges, on condition that it 
should lend its capital to the Government at eight per cent, inter- 
est. The plan had encountered great opposition, especially among 
the landed gentry, and had only been carried through the' strenu- 
ous exertions of Montague and the Whig party. Locke subscribed 
500/., a considerable sum in those days. 



5 8 LOCKE. 



CHAPTER VI. 

POLITICAL AFFAIRS. — PUBLIC OCCUPATIONS. — RELATIONS 
WITH THE KING. 

Notwithstanding his retirement to Oates, and his mcessant 
literary activity, Locke never lost his interest in politics, and, as 
the friend and admirer of men like Monmouth, Somers, and Clarke, 
he must always have exercised a considerable influence on the 
policy of the Whig party. In the spring of 1695 he seems to have 
taken a primary share in determining a measure which for a time 
divided the Houses of Lords and Commons, and which must have 
enlisted his warmest sympathies. This was the repeal of the Li- 
censing Act. The English Press had never been wholly free, and 
the Act of Charles II., which was still in force, was peculiarly 
stringent. Occasion had been taken by the Commons, when it 
was proposed, in the session of 1694-95, to renew certain tempo- 
rary statutes, to strike out this particular statute from the list. The 
Lords dissented, and re-inserted it. The Commons refused to ac- 
cept the amsndment. A conference of both Llouses took place, 
Clarke of Chipley being the leading manager on the part of the 
Commons, and the result was that the Lords waived their objec- 
tions. The paper of reasons tendered by the Commons' managers 
on this occasion is said, by a writer in the Craftsman for Nov. 20, 
1 73 1, to have been drawn up by Locke. As Clarke was one of his 
most intimate friends, and as the Reasons correspond pretty 
closely with a paper of criticisms on the Act written by Locke, this 
statement is probably true, so far at least as concerns their sub- 
stance. The arguments employed are mainly practical, consisting 
of objections in detail, and pointing out inconveniences, financial 
and otherwise, which resulted from the operation of the Act. But 
these arguments, "suited to the capacity of the parliamentary ma- 
jority," did, as Macaulay has remarked, what Milton's Areopagit- 
ica had failed to do, and a vote, " of which the history can be but 
imperfectly traced in the journals of the House, has done more for 
liberty and for civilisation than the Great Charter or the Bill 
of Rights." Locke's paper of Criticisms, which is published in 
extenso in Lord King's Life, asks very pertinently, " why a man 
should not have liberty to print whatever he would speak, and be 
answerable for the one, just as he is for the other, if he transgresses 
the law in either." Pie then offers a suggestion, to take the place of 



LOCKE. 



59 



the licensing provisions : — " Let the printer or bookseller be an- 
swerable for whatever is against law in the book, as if he were the 
author, unless he can produce the person he had it from, which is 
all the restraint ought to be upon printing." It appears from this 
paper that the monopoly of the Stationers' Company had become 
so oppressive that books printed in London could be bought 
cheaper at Amsterdam than in St. Paul's Church Yard. Except 
for the few monopolists, the book-trade had been ruined in Eng- 
land. But then, he reflects, " our ecclesiastical laws seldom favour 
trade, and he that reads this Act with attention will find it upse " 
(that is, highly) k ' ecclesiastical." 

This question had hardly been settled before Locke had an- 
other opportunity of influencing legislation on a subject which ab- 
sorbed much of his interest, and on which he had already em- 
ployed his pen. Probably at no time in the history of our country 
has the condition of the coinage become so burning a question, or 
caused such wide-spread distress, as in the years immediately 
succeeding the Revolution. To understand the monetary dif- 
ficulties occasioned by clipping the coin, it must be remembered 
that, at the time of which I am speaking, two kinds of silver money 
(if we neglect the imperfectly milled money which was executed 
between 1 561 and 1663) were in circulation, hammered money with 
unmarked rims, and what was called milled money, from being 
madoin a coining-mill, with a legend on the rim of the larger and 
graining on the rim of the smaller pieces. The latter kind of coins, 
too, had the additional advantage of being almost perfectly circular, 
while the shape of the former was almost always more or less 
irregular. The hammered money, it is plain, could be easily clipped 
or pared, whereas the milling was an absolute protection against 
this mode of fraud. Though milling, in much its present form, had 
been introduced into our mint in the year 1663, and then became 
the exclusive mode of coining, the old hammered money still con- 
tinued to be legal tender ; and, as the milled money was always 
worth its weight in silver, and the hammered money was gener- 
ally current at something, much above its intrinsic worth, the 
milled money was naturally melted down or exported abroad, leav- 
ing the hammered money in almost exclusive possession of the 
field. The milled money disappeared almost as fast as it was 
coined, and the hammered money was clipped and pared more and 
more, till it was often not worth half or even a third of the sum 
for which it passed. At Oxford, indeed, a hundred pounds' 
worth of the current silver money, which ought to have weighed 
four hundred ounces, was found to weigh only a hundred and six- 
teen. Every month the state of things was becoming worse and 
worse. The cost of commodities was constantly rising, and every 
payment of any amount involved endless altercations. In a bargain 
not only had the price of- the article to be settled, but also the value 
of the money in which it was to be paid. A guinea, which at one 
place counted for only twenty-two shillings, would at another fetch 
thirty, and might have brought far more,"had not the Government 



Oo LOCKE. 

fixed the sum as the maximum at which it would be taken in the 
payment of taxes. Thus, all commercial transactions had become 
disarranged ; no one knew what he was really worth, or what any 
commodity might cost him a few months hence. Macaulay, who 
has given a most graphic description of the financial condition of 
the country at this time, hardly exaggerates when he says, " It may 
de doubted whether all the misery which had been inflicted on the 
English nation in a quarter of a century by bad kings, bad minis- 
ters, bad parliaments, and bad judges,' was equal to the misery 
caused in a single year by bad crowns and bad shillings." Almost 
from the moment of his return to England, Locke had felt the 
gravest anxiety on this subject. When at my lodgings in London," 
says Lady Masham, speaking of the time immediately succeeding 
the Revolution, "the company there, finding him often afflicted 
about a matter which nobody else took any notice of, have railied 
him upon this uneasiness as being a visionary trouble, he has more 
than once replied, ' We might laugh at it, but it would not be long 
before we should want money to send our servants to market with 
for bread and meat,' which was so true, five or six years after, that 
there was not a family in England who did not find this a difficulty." 
The letter on " Some Considerations of the Consequences of 
Lowering of Interest and Raising the Value of Money," the latter 
part of which dealt with this question, is dated as early as Nov. 7, 
1691, and had been, in the main, as he tells us, put into writing 
about twelve months before. Here he not only points out the in- 
tolerable character of the grievances under which the nation was 
labouring, but also protests most emphatically against one of the 
proposed methods of remedying them, namely, "raising the value 
of money," as it was called ; that is, depreciating the intrinsic value 
of the money coined, or raising the denomination, so, for instance, 
as to put into a crown-piece or a shilling, when coined, less than the 
customary amount of silver. To the consideration of this scheme,' 
which at one time found much favor, we shall soon see that he 
had occasion to recur. Universal as were the complaints about 
the existing state of things, no active measures, if we except whole- 
sale and frequent hangings for "clipping the coin," and increased 
measures of vigilance for the purpose of detecting the delinquents, 
were taken for stopping the evil, until the year 1695. Under the 
malign ascendancy of Danby, the Government had other views and 
objects than to ameliorate the condition of the people. But, in the 
years 1694 and 1695, other and more enlightened statesmen were 
gradually winning their way into the royal councils, or beginning 
to occupy a more important position in them. For at this period, 
we must recollect, the high officers of state were not all, as now, 
necessarily of one uniform political pattern. In April, 1694, im- 
mediately after the establishment of the Bank of England, Charles 
Montague, afterwards Lord Halifax, one of the greatest of English 
financiers, had been made Chnncellor of the Exchequer. And, on 
occasion of the king's departure for the Continent in May, 1695, 
two of Locke's most intimate friends — Lord Keeper Somers and 



LOCKE. 6 1 

the Earl of Pembroke — were nominated among the seven Lords 
Justices, who were to govern the kingdom during William's ab- 
sence. To discerning and judicious statesmen like Somers and 
Montague it must have been apparent that the penal laws for pro- 
tecting the coinage were altogether inadequate to the purpose. 
The glins to be made were so large and so easily obtained, that 
men were ready to run the risk of the punishment. And, more- 
over, even if the crime was detected, the punishment was by no 
means certain or unattended with sympathy. Great as were the 
suffering and inconveniences inflicted on the people by these 
practices, the punishment of death appeared to many to be in ex- 
cess of the offence. Juries were often unwilling to convict, and 
the disgrace incurred bv the criminal was very different from that 
which attended the murderer or the ordinary thief. That wise finan- 
cial legislation, and not the more stringent execution of the penal 
laws, was the true and only effectual mode of eradicating the disease, 
was at length recognized by the Government, and the new Lords 
Justices soon set about to devise the remedy. To Locke, wn0 was 
well known to have been the author of the pamphlet which appear- 
ed on the subject in 1692. they naturally turned for advice. In the 
early part of October, while the king was on his way back from his 
successful campaign in the Netherlands, he was summoned up 
from Oates to confer with them. Writing to Molyneux the next 
month, and informing him of the fact, he adds, with characteristic 
modesty : " This is too publicly known here to make the mention- 
ing of it to you appear vanity in me." Notwithstanding the subor- 
dinate part which Locke here seems to assign to himself, there can 
be no doubt that his share in the measures of the Government, as 
ultimately matured, was a principal, if not the principal, one. That 
legislative measures would now be taken, there was no longer any 
question. But the danger of which Locke was chiefly afraid was 
raising the denomination of the coin, or, in other words, the 
legalized depreciation of the currency, a scheme against which he 
had formerly protested, and which was now officially recommended 
to the Government by one of their own subordinates, William 
Lowndes. Orders had been given to Lowndes, who, after many 
years of good service in a subordinate capacity, had recently been 
appointed Secretary to the Treasury, to collect statistics relating 
to the monetary condition of the country, and to report on the 
most practicable methods of re-coining the current silver money. 
In executing the former part of his task, he left no doubt as to the 
necessity of speedily applying some remedy. The silver coins 
brought into the Exchequer during three months of 1695 ought to 
have weighed 221,418 ounces. Their actual weight was 113,771 
ounces, or barely over one-half. In consequence of the vitiating, 
diminishing, and counterfeiting of the current moneys, he says, 
" It is come to pass that great contentions do daily arise amongst 
the king's subjects in fairs, markets, shops, and other places 
throughout the kingdom, about the passing and refusing of the 
same, to the great disturbance of the public peace. Many bar- 



62 LOCKE. 

gains, doings, and dealings are totally prevented and laid aside, 
which lessens trade in general." The necessity of setting the 
price of commodites according to the value of the money to be re- 
ceived, is, he considers, '• one great cause of raising the price, not 
only of merchandise, but even of edibles and other necessaries for 
the sustenance of the common people, to their great grievance." 
So far, his political economy was perfectly sound ; but when he 
comes to discuss the question of re-coinage, he advocates, without 
any misgiving, a scheme for the depreciation of the currency to 
the extent of one-fifth. A crown-piece was henceforth to count as 
6.?. 3d., and the nominal value of half-crowns, shillings, and six- 
pences was to be raised proportionately. Locke, with his clearer 
mind, saw, of course, that this would only be for the state to do 
systematically and by law the very same thing for which the clip- 
pers were being hanged. It would be to legalize the disarrange- 
ment of all monetary transactions, and to deprive every creditor of 
one-fifth of his debts. Montague and Somers were as clear on 
this point as he was, and Somers at once urged him to reply. 
Locke had returned to Oates, in consequence of the sudden death 
of Mrs. Cudworth, on the i6th of November, and at once set about 
his answer. 

This tract, which formed a pamphlet of more than a hundred 
pages, was submitted to the Lords Justices, printed, and published 
before the end of December. It was entitled Further Considera- 
tions coticerning Raising the Value of Money, and simplified and 
enforced the arguments contained in a previous pamphlet which 
Locke had also drawn up for the use of the Lords Justices earlier 
in the year, under the title, Some Observations on a Printed Paper 
entitled, For Encouraging the Coining Silver money in Eng- 
land, and after for keeping it here. Meanwhile, Montague had, 
under the sanction of a committee of the whole House, introduced 
his resolutions into the House of Commons, and there can be little 
doubt that, in drawing up these, he and the Lords Justices had 
been assisted by Locke. Any way, the resolutions embodied in 
the main the opinions which Locke had been so instrumental in 
impressing on those in authority. The old standard value of the 
silver pieces was to be retained both as to weight and fineness, the 
point for which he had fought so persistently. The clipped pieces 
were, after a certain day, only to be received in payment of taxes, or 
in loans to the Exchequer; after a further day, they were to cease 
to be legal tender altogether. All the hammered money, as it came 
into the mint in payment of loans or taxes, was to be re-coined as 
milled money, and the loss to be borne by the Exchequer. When 
the resolution that the old standard was to be retained was put to 
the House, it was challenged, and an amendment moved by those 
who were of Lowndes' opinion that the word "both " be omitted. 
On a division, there were 225 for retaining the word, and 114 
against. The House thus, by a large majority, affirmed what all 
economists would now regard as an elementary principle of finance. 
A Bill embodying the resolution was soon passed, but, in conse- 



LOCKE. 63 

quence of difficulties with the Lords, had to be dropped. A fresh 
Bill was introduced on the 13th of January, substantially embody- 
ing the same provisions as the old Bill, and was hurried through 
its various stages so fast that it received the Royal Assent on the 
21st of January, 1695-96. Up to the 4th of May," 1696, the clipped 
money was to be received in payment of taxes, and up to the 24th 
of June, for loans or other payments into the Exchequer. But 
after the 10th of February ensuing, it was to cease to be legal ten- 
der in ordinary payments. Thus, in spite of much temporary in- 
convenience caused by the scarcity of money during the time of 
transition, the silver coinage of the country was, once for all, put 
upon a sound basis. Late as Locke's pamphlet appeared, it prob- 
ably helped to facilitate the passage of the Bill through the two 
Houses, as the rekerated statement of his opinions had undoubtedly 
contributed in very large measure to shape and confirm the action 
of the government. It may be mentioned that the loss to the Ex- 
chequer, estimated as 1,200,000/., was made up by the imposition 
of a house tax and window tax, the former of which still continues, 
while the latter existed within the memory of many men now only 
of middle age. 

Great as is the debt which philosophy owes to Locke's Essay, 
constitutional theory to his treatises on government, the freedom 
of religious speculation to his Letters on Toleration, and the ways 
of " sweet reasonableness " to all these, and indeed to all his works, 
it would form a nice subject of discussion whether mankind at 
large has not been more benefited by the share which he took in 
practical reforms than by his literary productions. It would un- 
doubtedly be too much to affirm that, without his initiative or 
assistance, the state of the coinage would never have been re- 
formed, the monopoly of the Stationers' Company abolished, or 
the shackles of the Licensing Act struck off. But had it not been 
for his clearness of vision, and the persistence of his philanthropic 
effort, these measures miglit have been indefinitely retarded or 
clogged with provisos and compromises which might have robbed 
them of more than half their effects. A generation ago it was the 
fashion in many circles to speak contemptuously of the writers and 
statesmen of William's reign, agd even now but scant and grudg- 
ing justice is often done to them. The admirers of mystical phi- 
losophy and romantic politics may, however, fairly be challenged to 
show that their heroes, whether in letters or action, have borne 
equal fruit with the vigorous understanding and plain, direct, prac- 
tical common-sense of men like Halifax, Somers, and Locke. 

It has already been stated that soon after his return to Eng- 
land Locke was appointed a Commissioner of Appeals, a post 
which, though not entirely without duties, seems to have taken up 
but little of his time. One of his letters to Clarke shows the diffi- 
culty of forming a quorum, and perhaps illustrates the fact that 
when the duties of an office are slight, they are generally neglected 
altogether. But towards the end of the year 1695 the govern- 
ment, now virtually under the leadership of Somers, determined to 



64 LOCKE. 

revive the council of trade and plantations of which, it will be rec- 
ollected, Locke had been Secretary when Shaftesbury's counsels 
were in the ascendant at the court of Charles II., as far back as 
the year 1673. At first there were some difficulties with the king, 
but ultimately, on the 15th of May, 1696, he was induced to issue 
the patent appointing and defining the duties of a commission. 
Besides the great officers of state, there were to be certain paid 
commissioners, with a salary of 1000/. a year, of whom Locke was 
one. His name was inserted in the first draft of the commission 
without his express consent, and he appears, as we can well under- 
stand, to have accepted the office only with extreme reluctance. 
Writing to Molyneux, who had congratulated him on the appoint- 
ment, he says with evident sincerity : 

• 
" Your congratulation I take as you meant, kindly and seriously, and, 
it may be, it is what another would rejoice in ; but 'tis a preferment I 
shall get nothing by, and I know not whether my country will, though 
that I shall aim at with all my endeavours. Riches may be instrumental 
to so many good purposes, that it is, I think, vanity rather than religion 
or philosophy to pretend to contemn them. But yet they may be purchased 
too dear. My age and health demand a retreat from bustle and 
business, and the pursuit of some inquiries I have in my thoughts 
makes it more desirable than any of those rewards which public employ- 
ments tempt people with. I think the little I have enough, and do not 
desire to live higher or die richer than I am. And therefore you have 
reason rather to pity the folly,than congratulate the fortune, that engages 
me in the whirlpool." 

The duties of the commission could hardly have been more 
widely defined than they were. It was to be at once a Board of 
Trade, a Poor-Law Board, and a Colonial Office. The commis- 
soners were to inquire into the general condition of trade in the 
country, both internal and external, and " to consider by what 
means the several useful and profitable manufactures already 
settled in the kingdom may be further improved ; and how, and in 
what manner, new and profitable manufactures maybe introduced." 
They were also " to consider of some proper methods for setting 
on work and employing the poor q£ the kingdom, and making them 
useful to the public, and thereby easing our subjects of that bur- 
then." Finally, they were to inform themselves of the present 
condition of the plantations, as the colonies were then called, not 
only in relation to commerce, but also to the administration of 
government and justice, as well as to suggest means of rendering 
them more useful to the mother country, especially in the supply 
of naval stores. Here, surely, was work enough for men far 
younger and more vigorous than Locke ; but, having undertaken 
the duties of the office, he appears in no way to have spared him- 
self. In the summer and autumn x months he resided in London, 
and attended the meetings of the board personally, often day after 
day, and in the evening as well as the day-time. In the winter and 
spring his health compelled him to reside at Oates, but he was 



LOCKE, 65 

constantly sending up long minutes for the use of his colleagues. 
Mr. Fox, Bourne, who has been carefully through the proceedings 
of the commission, informs us thrat Locke was altogether its pre- 
siding genius. He was a member of this board a little over four 
years, having been compelled by increasing ill-health, or, as the 
minutes of the council put it, "finding his health more and more 
impaired by the air of this city," to resign on the 28th of June, 
1700. The king, we are told by Lady Masham, was most unwilling 
to receive his resignation, " telling him that, were his attendance 
ever so small, he was sensible his countenance in the commission 
would be useful to him, and that he did not desire he should be 
one day in town on that account to the prejudice of his health." 
Locke, however, was too conscientious to retain a place with large 
emoluments, of which he felt that he could no longer perform the 
duties to his own satisfaction. It is interesting to find that his 
successor was Matthew Prior, the poet. 

When we have seen the wide powers of the commission, we 
hardly need feel surprise that its business was multifarious. It at 
once set to work to collect evidence of the state of trade in the 
colonies, of our commercial relations with foreign ports, of the 
condition of the linen and paper manufactures at home, of the 
number of paupers in the kingdom, and the mode of their relief, as 
well as to devise means for increasing the woollen trade and pre- 
venting the exportation of wool. Locke was specially commissioned 
"#to draw up a scheme of some method of determining differences 
between merchants by referees that might be decisive without ap- 
peal." In the winter of 1696-97, finding that his work followed 
him to Oates, and being then apparently in a feebler state of health 
than usual, he made an ineffectual attempt to escape from his new 
employment, but Somers refused to hand in his resignation to the 
king. From a Letter to Molyneux we find that it was not simply 
his ill-health, but the "corruption of the age," which made him 
averse to continuing in oifice. And we can well understand how 
troublesome, and apparently hopeless, it must have been to deal 
with the various threatened interests of that time, when monopolies, 
patents, and pensions were regarded by the governing classes al- 
most as a matter of course. 

In the summer of 1697 the principal subject which engaged the 
attention of the commission was the best means of discouraging 
the Irish woollen manufacture, and of, at the same time, encourag- 
ing the Irish linen manufacture. Each commissioner was invited 
to bring up a separate report. Three did so. Locke's was the 
one selected, and, with. slight alterations, was signed by the other 
commissioners on the 31st of August, and forwarded almost imme- 
diately afterwards to the Lords Justices. This interesting state- 
document proceeds entirely upon the notions of protection to 
native industries which were then almost universally current among 
statesmen and merchants. The problems were to secure to Eng- 
land the monopoly of what was then regarded as its peculiar and 
appropriate manufacture, the woollen trade, and to assign to Ire- 



66 LOCKE. 

land, in return for the restrictions imposed upon her, some com^ 
pensating branch of industry. According to the ideas then com-, 
monly prevalent, the scheme was perfectly equitable to both 
countries. But, naturally, the interests of England are put in the 
foreground. The interests of the Irish people, however, were not 
to be neglected, and what Locke doubtless conceive'd as full com- 
pensation was to be given them for the loss of their woollen trade. 
"And since it generally proves ineffectual, and we conceive it hard 
to endeavour to drive men from the trade they are employed in by 
bare prohibition, without offering them at the same time some 
other trade which, if they please, may turn to account, we humbly 
propose that the linen manufacture be set on foot, and so encour- 
aged in Ireland as may make it the general trade of that country 
as effectually as the woollen manufacture is, and must be, of Eng- 
land." Linen cloth and all other manufactures Tiade of flax or 
hemp, without any mixture of wool, were to be exported to all 
places duty free, as indeed had already been provided by Act of 
Parliament with regard to England. One method by which Locke 
proposed to encourage the linen manufacture in Ireland runs so 
counter to modern notions with regard both to the education of 
the poor and to freedom of employment, that it may be interesting 
to the reader to see the suggestion at length : 

" And, because the poorest earning in the several parts of the linen 
manufacture is at present in the work of the spinners, who therefore need, 
the greatest encouragement, and ought to be increased as much as possi- 
ble, that therefore spinning schools be set up in such places and at such 
distances as the directors shall appoint, where whoever will come to learn 
to spin shall be taught gratis, and to which all persons that have not forty 
shillings a year estate shall be obliged to send all their children, both 
male and female, that they have at home with them, from six to fourteen 
years of age, and may have liberty to send those also between four and 
six if they please, to be employed there in spinning ten hours in the day 
when the days are so long, or as long as it is light when they are shorter :, 
provided always that no child shall be obliged to go above two miles to 
any such school." 

Then there follow many other minute and paternal regulations 
of the same kind, the object of which was to turn the whole Irish 
nation into spinners, and to supply with linen not only " the whole 
kingdom of England," but foreign markets as well. The Irish 
authorities, however, were meanwhile preparing a scheme of their 
own, and, after controversies between the English and Irish offi- 
cials, extending over more than two years, Locke's plan was finally 
laid aside in favour of that of Louis Crommelin. Besides the at- 
tempt to monopolise the woollen trade for England and the linen 
trade for Ireland, much of the time of the Council was devoted to 
schemes for the protection of native industries, by forbidding or 
throwing obstacles in the way of importation and exportation. 
But Locke and his colleagues were here only following the track 
marked out for them by the ordinary opinion of the time. 



LOCKE. 6 7 

The main subject which occupied the attentions of the Council 
in the autumn of 1697 was the employment of the idle or necessi- 
tous poor. From the beginning of its sessions, it had been col- 
lecting evidence on this subject, and, in September of this year, it 
was decided that each commissioner should draw up a scheme of 
reform, to be submitted to the Council. As had been the case with 
his report on the Irish linen manufacture, Locke's was the one 
selected. From a variety of causes, however, his suggestions were 
never carried into effect, and the various efforts of William's Gov- 
ernment to deal with the gigantic problem of pauperism proved 
abortive. 

Locke's paper of suggestisns assumes as a datum what was 
always regarded at this time as an axiom, of poor-law legislation, 
namely, that it is the duty of each individual parish to maintain 
and employ its own poor, having, as a set-off, the right of coercing 
the able-bodied to work . Pernicious and partial as this principle was 
we should have more occasion for surprise if we found Locke con- 
travening it than conforming to it. The merit of his paper is that 
it offers excellent suggestions for minising the evils necessarily 
attaching to the system then in vogue. The recent growth of pau- 
perism he refers to " relaxation of discipline and corruption of 
manners, virtue and industry being as constant companions on 
the one side as vice and idleness are on the other. The first 
step, therefore," he continues, " towards the setting of the poor 
on work ought to be a restraint of their debauchery by a strict 
execution of the laws provided against it, more particularly by 
the suppression of superfluous brandy-shops and unnecessary 
ale-houses, especially in country parishes not lying upon great 
roads." He then proposes a series of provisions, sufficiently 
stringent, for the purpose of compelling the idle and able-bodied 
poor to work, stating that, upon a very moderate computation, 
about one half of those who receive relief from the parishes 
are able to earn their own livelihoods. In maritime counties, all 
those not physically or mentally incapacitated, who were found 
begging out of their own parish without a pass, were to be com- 
pelled to serve on board one of his Majesty's ships, under 'strict 
discipline, for three years. In the inland counties, all those so 
found begging were to be sent to the nearest house of correction 
for a like period. But, besides the able-bodied paupers, there were 
a great number not absolutely unable or unwilling to do something 
for their livelihood, and yet prevented by age or circumstances from 
wholly earning their own living. For these he proposes to find em- 
ployment in the wooden or other manufactures, so as, at all events, 
to diminish the cost of tlteir maintenance to the public, and at the 
same time increase the industrial resources of the country. One 
of the most distinctive features of Locke's scheme was the pro- 
posal to set up working-schools for spinning or knitting, or some 
other industrial occupation, in each parish, "to which the children 
of all such as demand relief of the parish, above three and under four- 
teen years of age, whilst they live at home with their parents, and are 



68 LOCKE. 

not otherwise employed for their livelihood by the allowance of the 
overseers of the poor, shall be obliged to come." The children 
were to be fed at school, and this mode of relief was to take the 
place of the existing allowance in money paid to a father who had 
a large number of children, which, we are not surprised to learn, 
was frequently spent in the alehouse, whilst those for whose bene- 
fit it was given were left to perish for want of necessaries. The 
food of the children of the poor at that time, we are told, was sel- 
dom more than bread and water, and often there was a very scanty 
supply of that. Another advantage which Locke proposed to effect 
by the institution of these schools was the moral and religious in- 
struction of the children. They would be obliged to come con- 
stantly to church every- Sunday, along with their schoolmasters or 
dames, " whereby they would be brought into some sense of religion, 
whereas ordinarily now, in their idle and loose way of bringing up, 
they are as utter strangers both to religion and morality as they 
are to industry." One further provision of this scheme may be 
noticed, as offering some mitigation of the parochial system of re- 
lief which then obtained, namely, "that in all cities' and towns cor- 
porate the poor's tax be not levied by distinct parishes, but by one 
equal tax throughout the whole corporation." 

The anxiety of the king to retain Locke on the Commission has 
already been mentioned. It would appear that they were in not 
infrequent conference, and we know that the king entertained a 
very high opinion both of his integrity and of his political capacity. ' 
A good deal of mystery attaches to one of their interviews, but the 
explanation of it proffered by Mr. Fox-Bourne possesses, at any 
rate, considerable plausibility. One bitter January morning, in the 
winter of 1697-98, while Locke was at Oates, he received a pressing 
summons from the king to repair to Kensington. He was at the 
time suffering more than ordinarily from the bronchial affection to 
which he was constantly subject, and Lady Masham attempted to 
dissuade him from running the risk of the journey, but in vain. 
When he returned, the only account that he would give of the in- 
terview was that " the king had a desire to talk with him about his 
own health, as believing that there was much similitude in their 
cases." It appears, however, from a letter addressed by Locke to 
Somers a few days after his return to Oates, that the king had 
offered him some important employment, and that he had excused 
himself on the ground of his weak health, and his inexperience in 
that kind of business, the business being such as required " skill 
in dealing with men in their various humours, and drawing out their 
secrets." Mr. Fox-Bourne forms the reasonable conjecture that 
Locke had been asked to go as right-hand man to William Bentinck, 
Earl of Portland, who had just been nominated as special ambas- 
sador to the Court of France. The peace of Ryswick had been 
ratified in the previous November, and the mission to Louis XIV. 
was, of course, one requiring great tact and sagacity. William had 
strongly urged Locke, some years before, to represent him on an- 
other very important mission, the one to the Elector of Branden- 



LOCKE. 69 

burg, and it may be that, on the present occasion, no fitter person 
occurred to him. Any way, the employment was one which would 
have advanced Locke in riches and honour; but as such, glad as 
he might have been to serve his country disinterestedly to the best 
of his power, it had no attractions for him. " He must have a heart 
strongly touched with wealth or honours who, at my age, and labour- 
ing for breath, can find any great relish for either of them." 

On one occasion Locke accompanied the king, the latter going 
incognito to a meeting of the Society of Friends, where they list- 
ened to the famous Quaker preacheress, Rebecca Collier. Locke 
afterwards sent her a parcel of sweetmeats, with a very compliment- 
ary letter, and is said to have found the meeting so agreeabfe that 
it removed his objections to a female ministry. . 

With his resignation of the Commissionership of the Board of 
Trade, in the summer of 1700, Locke's public life comes to an end. 
His friend Somers had been sacrificed to the incessant and malig- 
nant attacks of the Tories, and dismissed from the Chancellorship 
in the previous spring ; and to those statesmen who were inspired 
by a sincere and simple desire for the well-being of their country 
the political outlook had become anything but cheerful. The 
condition of Locke's health was quite a sufficient reason for his 
desiring to be relieved of the anxieties of office ; but we can hardly 
.doubt that, on other grounds as well, he was glad to escape from 
so intricate a maze as the field of politics bade fair soon to become. 



70 LOCKE, 



CHAPTER VII. 

CONTROVERSY WITH STILLINGFLEET. — OTHER LITERARY OCCUFA' 
TIONS. — DOMESTIC LIFE. — PETER KING. — LATTER YEARS.— 
DEATH. 

In order to resume the thread of Locke's literary and domestic 
life, it is now necessary to go back two or. three years. I have 
already spoken of no less than three literary controversies in which 
he found himself engaged, one on fianancial, and two on religious 
questions. Of the latter, one was occasioned by the publication of 
the Letter on Toleration, the other by that of the Reasonableness 
of Christianity. The Essay also had been attacked by Norris and 
other writers, including one very acute antagonist, John Serjeant, 
or Sergeant, a Roman Catholic ' priest ; but to these critics Locke 
did not see fit to reply. The strictures on Norris only appear 
among his posthumous works. But in the autumn of 1696 Still- 
ingfleet, Bishop of Worcester, in his Discourse in Vindication of 
the Doctrine of the Trinity, pointedly drew attention to the principles 
of the Essay, as favouring anti-Trinitarian doctrine. Stillingfleet's 
position and reputation appeared to demand an answer, and before 
the year, according to the old style, was out, Locke's Letter to the 
Bishop of Worcester was published. The Bishop's Answer, Locke's 
Reply to the Answer, and the Bishop's " Answer to Mr. Locke's 
Second Letter, wherein his notion of ideas is proved to be incon- 
sistent with itself, and with the articles of the Christian faith," all 
followed, one on the other, within a few months. The last letter 
of the series is " Mr. Locke's Reply to the Bishop of Worcester's 
Answer to his Second Letter," published in 1699. Stillingfleet 
died soon after the publication of this pamphlet, and thus the volu- 
minous controversy came to an end. There can be no doubt that 
the antagonists were unequally matched. Stillingfleet was clumsy 
both in handling and argument and constantly misrepresented or 
exaggerated the statements of his adversary. On the other hand, 
Locke, notwithstanding an unnecessary prolixity which wearies 
the modern reader, shows admirable skill and temper. He deals 
tenderly with his victim, as if he loved him, but, none the less, 
never fails to despatch him with a moral stab. Stillingfleet, indeed, 
was no metaphysician, and not very much of a logician. He did 
not see at all clearly where the orthodox doctrines were affected, 
and where they remained unaffected, by Locke's philosophy, and 
he no doubt considerably exaggerated the bearing of Locke's direct 



LOCKE. j t 

statements upon them. At the same time, it is impossible to deny 
tnat his instincts were perfectly sound in apprehending grave dan- 
gers to the current theological opinions, and still more, perhaps, :o the 
established mode of expressing them, from the "new way of ideas." 
Religious, and even devout, as are those portions of the Essay in 
which Locke has occasion expressly to mention the leading prin- 
ciples of the Christian faith, yet his handling of many of the meta- 
physical terms and notions which modern divines, whether Catholic 
or Protestant, had taken on trust from their predecessors, the fa- 
thers and schoolmen, was well calculated to alarm those who had 
the interest of theologic.il orthodoxy at heart. The playful freedom 
with which he discusses the idea of substance seemed, not unrea- 
sonably, to strike at the terminology of the Athanasian Creed, 
while, most unreasonably, his resolution of personal identity into 
present and recollected states of consciousness appeared incon- 
sistent with the doctrine of the Resurrection of the Dead. A far 
more powerful solvent, however, of the unreflecting and complacent 
orthodoxy, into which established churches, and, in fact, all pros- 
perous religious communities, are apt to lapse, was to be found in the 
general drift and tendency rather than in the individual tenets of 
Locke's philosophy. And this fact, though only very dimly and con- 
fusedly, Stillingfleet app&ars to have seen. To insist that words 
shall always stand for determinate ideas, to attempt to trace ideas 
to their original sources, and to propose to discriminate between 
the certainty and varying probabilities of our beliefs, according to 
the nature of the evidence on which thev rest, is to encourage a 
state of mind diametricallv the opposite of that which humbly and 
thankfully accept the words of the religious teacher, without doubt 
and without inquiry. To the religious teacher whose own beliefs 
rest on no previous inquirv, who has never acquired " a reason 
for the faith that ;s in him," such a state of mind must necessarily 
be not onlvinconvenient but repulsive : and hence we have no 
right to feel surprised when an attempt is made to expose it to 
popular odium, or to fasten on those who entertain it inju- 
rious or onprobrious epithets. The old-standing feud, of which 
Plato speaks, between poetrvand philosophv. has in great measure 
been transferred, in these latter times, to" philosophvand theology. 
But in both cases the antagonism is an unnecessarv one. The 
highest art is compatible with the most profound speculation. And 
so we mav venture to hope that the simple love of truth, combined 
with the charitv ''which never faileth," will lead men not further 
awav from the Divine presence, but nearer to, and into it. 

Here T thankfully take leave of the mass of controversial liter- 
ature, in the writing of which so much of Locke's latter life was 
snent. The controversies were not of his own seeking, and, from 
all that we know of his temper and character, must have been 
as distasteful to him as they are wearisome to us. But prolonged 
and reiterated controversy was of the habit of the time, and'no 
man who cared candidly and unreservedly to exoress his opinions 
on any important question could hope to escape from it. 



72 LOCKE. 

In the autumn of 1697, while the controversy with Stillingfieet 
was at its hottest, Locke wrote to Molyneux : — " I had much rather 
be at leisure to make some additions to my book of Education and 
my Essay on Human Understanding, than be employed to defend 
myself against the groundless, and, as others think, trifling quarrel 
of the bishop." He was at this time engaged on preparing the 
fourth edition of the Essay for the press. In addition to this task, 
or rather as part of it, he was also employing himself on writing the 
admirable little tract on tke Conduct of the Understanding, the 
contents of which I shall notice in a subsequent chapter. This 
treatise, which was not published till after his death, was originally 
intended as an additional chapter to the Essay. Speaking of it in 
one of his letters to Molyneux, he says : — " I have written several 
pages on this subject ; but the matter, the farther I go, opens the 
more upon me, and I cannot yet get sight of any end of it. The 
title of the chapter will be ' Of the Conduct of the Understanding,' 
which, if I shall pursue as far as I imagine it will reach, and as 
it deserves, will, I conclude, make the largest chapter of my Essay." 
It did not, however, appear in the new edition, nor did Locke ever 
reduce its parts into order, or put the finishing stroke to it. He 
may, perhaps, have intended to revise it for a subsequent edition 
of the Essay, but the fourth was the last which appeared during his 
lifetime. 

Before speaking of the literary labours which occupied the last 
years of Locke's life, I may here conveniently recur to his domestic 
history. Of his quiet life wiih the Mashams little more need be 
said. Had Lady Masham been his daughter, she could not have 
tended him more carefully or lovingly ; and had he been her father, 
he could not have entertained a more sincere solicitude for the wel- 
fare of her and her family. All Locke's friends were welcome at 
Oates, and seem to have been regarded quite as much as friends 
of the Meshams as of his own. And Oates appears in every re- 
spect to have been as much Locke's home as that of its owners. In 
the whole of his correspondence, there does not appear the slightest 
trace of those petty piques and annoyances, those small desagre- 
ments, which are so apt to grow up among people who live much 
together, even when, at bottom, they entertain a deep love and ad- 
miration for each other. On the side of the Mashams we know 
that the tide of affection ran equally smooth. Lady Masham and 
Esther acted as his nurses, and with one or other of them he seems 
to have shared all his pursuits. The intimacy and sweetness of 
these relations surely imply as rare an amount of amiability of tem- 
per and power of winning regard on the one side, as of patience 
and devotion on the other. But then Locke possessed the inesti- 
mable gift of cheerfulness, which renders even the invalid's cham- 
ber a joy to those who enter it. All the glimpses we obtain of the 
life at Oates represent it as a gay and pleasant one, none the less 
gay and pleasant because its enjoyments were modest and rational. 
After complaining to Molyneux of the persistent asthma which 



LOCKE. 



73 



confined him a close prisoner to the house during the winter of 
1697-98, he adds, "I wish, nevertheless, that you were here with 
me to see how well I am; for you would find that, sitting by the 
fireside, I could bear my part in discoursing, laughing, and being 
merry with you, as well as ever I could in my life. If you were 
here (and if wishes of more than one could bring you, you would 
be here to-day) you would find three or four in the parlour after 
dinner who, you would say, passed their afternoons as agreeably 
and as jocundly as any people you have this good while met with." 
Locke's conversation is reported to have been peculiarly fascinating. 
He had a large stock of stories, and is said to have had a singu- 
larly easy and humorous way of telling them. 

Among the more frequent guests at Oates at this time were Ed- 
ward Clarke and his daughter Betty, Locke's "little wife," now 
fast growing up to womanhood, a son of Limborch, and a son of 
Benjamin Furly, both engaged in mercantile pursuits in London, 
and a young kinsman of Locke's own, Peter King, of whom I shall 
have more to say presently. One of the most anxiously expected 
guests, whose visits had been often promised and often deferred, 
was the correspondent of whom we have heard so much, William 
Molyneux. At length, after the rising of the British Parliament in 
the summer of 1698, the two friends met. Even on this occasion, 
Molyneux had been obliged to defer his promised visit for some 
weeks, on account of a recent trouble which he had brought on 
himself by the publication of a " home-rule " pamphlet, protesting 
against the interference of the English Parliament in Irish affairs. 
Both houses had joined in an address to the king, praying for pun- 
ishment on the offender ; but the king, possibly through Locke's 
intervention, had wisely taken no notice of the petition. Any way, 
after the prorogation, Molyneux seems to have felt sufficiently se- 
cure to venture on a journey across the Channel. He and Locke 
were together for some time both in London and at Oates. The 
friends, though they had been in such constant and intimate cor- 
respondence for six years, had never met before. We may easily 
imagine how warm was their greeting, how much they had to talk 
about, and how loath they were to separate. " I will venture to 
assert to you," wrote Molyneux on his return to Dublin, " that I 
cannot recollect, through the whole course of my life, such signal 
instances of real friendship as when I had the happiness of your 
company for five weeks together in London. That part thereof es- 
pecially which I passed at Oates has made such an agreeable im- 
pression on my mind that nothing can be more pleasing." Shortly 
after writing this letter, Molyneux died at the early age of forty- 
two. " His worth and his friendship to me," writes Locke, in a 
letter to Burridge, the Latin translator of the Essay, " made him 
an inestimable treasure, which I must regret the loss of the little 
remainder of my life, without any hope of repairing it in any way." 
He then characteristically goes on to ask if there is any service he 
can render to Molyneux^s' son. "They who have the care of him 
cannot do me a greater pleasure than to give me the opportunity 



74 



LCCKE 



to show that my friendship died not with his father." One of the 
most amiable and attractive traits in Locke's character is the eager- 
ness which he always displayed in advising, encouraging, or help- 
ing forward the sons of his friends. Any opportunity of doing so 
always gave him the most evident satisfaction, as, from his corre- 
spondence, we see in the case of Frank Masham, the two young 
Furlys, young Limborch, and numerous others. 

I must now no longer delay the introduction to the reader of 
Locke's young cousin, Peter King, Locke had an uncle, Peter 
Locke, whose daughter Anne had married Jeremy King, a grocer 
and salter in a substantial way of business at Exeter. Such a mar- 
riage was not necessarily any disparagement to Anne Locke's 
family, as the present line of demarcation between professional 
men and the smaller gentry, on the one side, and substantial retail 
tradesmen, on the other, hardly existed at that time. They had a 
son, Peter, born in 1669, who was consequently Locke's first cousin 
once removed. The boy seems for some time to have been em- 
ployed in his father's business, but he had a voracious appetite for 
books, and showed a decided talent for the acquisition of learning. 
Locke, on one of his visits, to Exeter, discovered these qu ilities, 
and persuaded Peter King's parents to allow him to change his 
mode of life, and study for one of the learned professions*. Whether 
he went to any English school does not appear ; but, during Locke's 
stay in Holland, he resided for some time in the University of 
Leyden. His studies there embraced at least classics, theology, 
and law ; and when he returned to England, apparently in 1690, he 
brought back with him a pamphlet entitled An Enquiry into the 
Constitution and Discipline of the Primitive Church. As in this 
treatise he maintained that Presbyterianism was the original form 
of Church government, he probably never had any serious inten- 
tion, notwithstanding his theological proclivities of entering holy 
orders in the Established Church. Any way, in October, 1694, he 
was entered a student of the Middle Temple ; and in Trinity Term, 
1698, he was called to the bar. During his residence in London 
as a law student, he must have been frequently at Oates, and Locke 
must have frequently visited him in his chambers in the Temple. 
The first extant letter from Locke to King, dated June 27, 1698, at 
any rate, assumes intimacy and frequency of intercourse. " Your 
company here had been ten times welcomer than any the best ex- 
cuse you could send ; but you may now pretend to be a man of 
business, and there can be nothing said to you." Very sound was 
the advice with which the elder relative concluded his letter to the 
young barrister : " When you first open your mouth at the bar, it 
should be in some easy plain matter that you are perfectly master 
of." King's success in his profession was very rapid, and he soon 
became one of the most popular counsel on the Western Circuit. 
In the general election of 1700 he attained one of the first objects 
of ambition at which a rising young barrister generally aims — a seat 
in the House of Commons. Owing, probably, to his cousin's influ- 
ence with the Whig leaders, he was returned for the small borough 



LOCKE. 



n 



of Beer Alston, in Devonshire, which he continued to represent in 
several successive Parliaments. Locke, writing to him shortly before 
the meeting of Parliament, entreats him not to go circuit, as he had 
intended to do, but to devote himself at once to his Parliamentary- 
duties. " I am sure there was never so critical a time, when every 
honest member of Parliament ought to watch his trust, and that you 
will see before the end of the vacation." The loss to his pocket, 
his good relative intimates, delicately enough, shall be amply made 
up to him. King took his cousin's advice on this point, but, for- 
tunately and wisely, did not take it on another. " My advice to you 
is not to speak at all in the House for some time, whatever fair op- 
portunity you may seem to have." King was advised to commu- 
nicate his " light or apprehensions " to some " honest speaker," who 
might make use of them for him. Locke, we must remember, was 
now becoming old, and though not, like many old men, jealous of 
his juniors, he could not escape the infirmity of all old men, that of 
exaggerating the youthfulness of youth, and so of insisting too 
stringently on the modesty becoming those in whom he was inter- 
ested. King broke the ice soon, after the meeting of Parliament, 
and Locke had the prudence and good-nature to show no resent- 
ment at his advice having been neglected. His cousin, however, 
never became a' great Parliamentary speaker; but he soon gained 
a reputation for being a thoroughly sound lawyer and a thoroughly 
honest man. He rose successively to he Recorder of London, 
Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and Lord High Chan- 
cellor of England. He was also ennobled as Lord King of Ockham, 
and, by a very curious coincidence, his four sons in succession bore 
the same title. To one of his descendants, his great-grandson, 
also named Peter, we owe the publication of many documents and 
letters connected with Locke, and the biography so well known as 
Lord King's Life of Locke. The present representative of the 
family, and the direct descendant in the male line of Peter King, is 
the Earl of Lovelace. As Peter King was, to all intents, Locke's 
adopted son, we may thus regard Locke as the founder of an illus- 
trious line in the English peerage, and there are certainly few, if 
any, of our ennobled families who can point to a founder whose 
name is so likely to be the heritage of all future ages. 

King kept Locke well posted in all that went on in Parliament, 
and seems also to have been a constant visitor at Oates. Soon 
after his election, Sir Francis Masham had considerately proposed 
to Locke that his cousin should "steal down sometimes with him 
on Saturday, and return on Monday." On one of these occasions, 
in the Easter holidays of 1701, King was accompanied by young 
Lord Ashley, now become the third Earl of Shaftesbury. Locke 
had then surmounted his winter troubles, and his old pupil pro- 
nounces him as well as he had ever known him. 

Amongst Locke's correspondents in these years was the cele- 
brated physician, Dr. Sloane, now Secretary of the Royal Society, 
afterwards created Sir Hans Sloane. In writing to him at the end 
of the century, evidently in answer to a request, Locke proposes a 



7 6 



LOCKE. 



scheme for rectifying the calendar. Notwithstanding the reforma- 
tion which had already taken place in many foreign countries, it 
will be recollected that the English year then began on the 25th of 
March, instead of the 1st of January, and that, by reckoning the 
year at exactly 365X days, or at 11 m. 14 sec. longer than its 
actual length, our time lagged ten days behind that of most other- 
European countries, as well as the real solar time. The inconve- 
nience, especially in transactions with foreign merchants, had be- 
come very great. The advent of the new century, inasmuch as the 
centenary year would be counted as a leap-year in England, but 
not in other countries where the new style or Gregorian calendar pre- 
vailed, would add an eleventh day to the amount of discrepancy, 
and hence the subject was now attracting more than ordinary at- 
tention. Locke's remedy was to omit the intercalar day in the year 
1700, according to the rule of the Gregorian calendar, as also for 
the ten next leap-years following, "by which easy way," he says, 
" we should in forty-four years insensibly return to the new style." 
"This," he adds, " I call an easy way, because it would b% without 
prejudice or disturbance to any one's civil rights, which, by lopping 
off ten or eleven days at once in any one year, might perhaps re- 
ceive inconvenience, the only objection that ever I heard made 
against rectifying our account." He also suggested that the year 
should begin, as in most other European countries, on the 1st of 
January. No change, however, was made till, by an Act of Parlia- 
ment passed in 1750-51, it was ordered that the year 1752 should 
begin on the 1st of January, and that the day succeeding the 2d of 
September in that year should be reckoned as the 14th. Locke's 
other correspondence with Sloane shows the interest which he still 
took in medical matters, and how ready he always was to expend 
time and thought on attending to the ailments of his poor neigh- 
bours at Oates. 

During the latter years of Locke's life his principal literary 
employment consisted in paraphrasing and writing commentaries 
on some of St. Paul's epistles. He thought that this portion of 
Scripture offered peculiar difficulties, and rinding, as he says, that 
he did not understand it himself, he set to work, rather for his own 
sake, and perhaps also that of the household at Oates, than with 
any view of publication, to attempt to clear up its obscurities. The 
labour was a work of love ; and to a man of Locke's devout dispo- 
sition, with almost a child-like confidence in the guidance of Scrip- 
ture, the occupation must have afforded a peculiar solace in the 
intervals of his disease, and as he felt that he was rapidly approach- 
ing the confines of that other world which had so long been familiar 
to his thoughts. Though he was induced to consent to the publi- 
cation of these commentaries, and though he himself prepared an 
introduction to them, they did not appear till after his death. 
They were then issued by instalments, coming out at intervals be- 
tween 1705 and 1707 inclusively. 

Locke's political interests, always keen, were specially active 
in the winter of 1701-02. England was just then on the point of 



LOCKE. 



77 



engaging in the war of the Spanish Succession. In the previous 
September an alliance against France and Spain had been con- 
cluded between the emperor and the two great maritime powers, 
England and Holland. Almost immediately after the conclusion 
of this treaty, James the Second had died at St. Germain, and not 
only had the French king allowed his son to be proclaimed King 
of England but had himself received him with royal honours at the 
court of Versailles. The patriotic and Protestant feeling of the 
country was thoroughly roused, and the new Parliament, which 
met on the 30th of December, was prepared to take the most ener- 
getic measures for the purpose of supporting the national honor 
and the Protestant succession. The king's speech, on opening 
the Parliament, excited an outburst of enthusiasm throughout the 
nation. He conjured the members to disappoint the hopes of their 
enemies by their unanimity. As he was ready to show himself the 
common father of his people, he exhorted them to cast out the 
spirit of party and division, so that there might no longer be any 
distinction but between those who were friends to the Protestant 
religion and the present establishment, and those who wished for 
a popish prince and a French government. The speech was 
printed in English, Dutch, and French, framed, and hung up, as 
an article of furniture, in the houses of good Protestants, both at 
home and abroad. Locke, writing to Peter King four days after 
the meeting of Parliament, asks him to send a copy of the king's 
speech, " printed by itself, and without paring off the edges." He 
suggests that, in addition to what the two Houses had done, the 
city of London and counties of England should, " with joined 
hearts and hands return his Majesty addresses of thanks for his 
taking such care of them." "Think of this with yourself," he 
says, " and think of it with others who can and ought to think how 
to save us out of the hands of France, into which we must fall, 
unless the whole nation exert its utmost vigour, and that speedily." 
He is specially urgent on his cousin not to" leave town, or to think 
of circuit business, till the kingdom has been put in an effectual 
state of defence. " I think it no good husbandry for a man to get 
a few fees on circuit and lose Westminster Hall." By losing 
Westminster Hall he does not, apparently, mean losing the chance 
of a judgeship, but forfeiting those rights and liberties, and that 
personal and national independence which the Revolution had only 
so lately restored. " For, I assure you, Westminster Hall is at 
stake, and I wonder how any of the house can sleep till he sees 
England in a better state of defence, and how he can talk of any- 
thing else till that is done." But a majority, at least, of the House 
of Commons was fully alive to its responsibilities ; enormous sup- 
plies were voted, and almost every conceivable measure was taken 
for securing the Protestant succession to the crown. A few days 
after Locke wrote the letter last quoted, King William died. His 
reflections on that event or on the political prospects under Wil- 
liam's successor, we do not possess. 

As the war proceeded, Locke's old friend, the Earl of Mon« 



v8 LOCKE, 

mouth, now become Earl of Peterborough, was entrusted with a 
naval expedition against the Spanish possessions in the West In- 
dies. He had a great desire to see Locke before his departure, 
and, Locke being unable to come up to London, he and the Count- 
ess drove down to Oates about the middle of November, 1702. It 
is characteristic of the times that Locke was " much in pain " about 
their getting back safely to town, the days being then so short. 
His young friend, Arent Furly, who was also a protege and fre- 
quent correspondent of Lord Shaftesbury, went out as Lord Peter- 
borough's secretary, and seems to have acquitted himself in the 
position with marked diligence and success. The early promise 
which he gave, however, was soon blighted. This young play-fel- 
low and foster-child, as he might also have been called, of Locke, 
died only a few years after him, in 171 1 or 1712. Before accom- 
panying Lord Peterborough on his expedition, he had been living 
for some time, first at Oates, and afterwards in lodgings in the 
neighbourhood, for the purpose of learning English. 

It is gratifying to find that, during the autumn of this year, 
Locke had received a visit from Newton. During the discussion 
of the re-coinage question, and the active operations which followed 
for the purpose of carrying out the decisions of Parliament, they 
must have been thrown a good deal together. Montague declared 
that, had it not been for the energetic measures taken by Newton, 
as Warden of the Mint, the re-coinage would never have been ef- 
fected. When, however, Newton came down to visit Locke at 
Oates, in 1702, their conversation seems to have turned mainly on 
theological topics. Locke showed Newton his notes upon the 
Corinthians, and Newton requested the loan of them. But, like 
most borrowers, he neglected to return them, nor did he take any 
notice of a letter from Locke, who was naturally very anxious to 
recover his manuscript. Peter King was asked to try to manage 
the matter. He was to call at Newton's residence in Jermyn 
Street, to deliver a second note, and to find out, if he could, the 
reasons of Newton's silence, and of his having kept the paper so 
long. But he was to do this " with all the tenderness in the world," 
for "he is a nice man to deal with, and a little too apt to raise in 
himself suspicions where there is no ground." The emissary was 
also, if he could do it with sufficient adroitness, to discover New- 
ton's opinion of the Commentary. But he was by no means to 
give the slightest cause of offence. " Mr. Newton is really a very 
valuable man, not only for his wonderful skill in mathematics, but 
in divinity too, and his great knowledge in the Scriptures, wherein 
I know few his equals. And therefore pray manage the whole 
matter so as not only to preserve me in his good opinion, but to 
increase me in it; and be sure to press him to nothing but what he 
is forward in himself to do." In this letter Locke, notwithstanding 
the caution with which he felt it necessary to approach one of so 
susceptible a temperament, says, " I have several reasons to think 
him truly my friend." And in this generous judgment there can 
be little doubt he was right. The friends probably never met 



LOCKE. 



79 



again, but Newton is said to have paid a visit, on one of his jour- 
neys perhaps from London to Cambridge, to Locke's tomb at High 
Laver. Peter King succeeded in recovering the manuscript, and 
at the same time or soon afterwards there came a letter, criticising 
one of Locke's interpretations, but expressing a general opinion 
that the "paraphrase and commentary on these two epistles is 
done with very great care and judgment." 

Something should here be said of two friends whom Locke had 
made in later life, one of whom seems to have been constantly 
about him during his last years. The less intimate of these was 
Samuel Bolde, a Dorsetshire clergyman, who had come forward, in 
1697, to defend the Reasonableness of Christianity against Ed- 
wards' attacks, and who afterwards did Locke a similar service in 
replying to the assailants of the Essay. He was one of Locke's 
correspondents, and once at least paid him a visit at Oates. 
Bolde's outspokenness and independence of judgment naturally ex- 
cited Locke's admiration. There are some memorable sentences 
in a letter written to him in 1699. " To be learned in the lump by 
other men's thoughts, and to be in the right by saying after others, 
is the much easier and quieter way ; but how a rational man, that 
should inquire and know for himself, can content himself with a 
faith or a religion taken upon trust, or with such a servile submis- 
sion of his understanding as to admit all and nothing else but what 
fashion makes passable among men, is to me astonishing. I do 
not wonder you should have, in many points, different apprehen- 
sions from what you meet with in authors. With a free mind, 
which unbiassedly pursues truth, it cannot be otherwise." After 
expanding these thoughts, and applying them to the study of Scrip- 
ture, he goes on to advise Bolde how to supply a mental defect 
that he had complained of, namely, that " he lost many things be- 
cause they slipped from him." The simple method was to write 
them down as they occurred. " The great help to the memory is 
writing," Bacon has said. Locke emphasises the dictum, and 
adds, " If you have not tried it, you cannot imagine the difference 
there is in studying with and without a pen in your hand." " The 
thoughts that come unsought, and as it were dropped into the mind, 
are commonly the most valuable of any we have, and therefore 
should be secured, because they seldom return again." 

The other friend, whose acquaintance had only been made dur- 
ing these later years, was Anthony Collins, who was not more than 
twenty-eight years of age when Locke died. Collins afterwards 
attained great celebrity as a Deistical writer, but none of his theo- 
logical works appeared till some time after Locke's death. Locke, 
with his sincere and simple belief in the divine origin of the Christian 
Revelation, would doubtless, had he lived to see them, have been 
shocked with their matter, and still more with their style. But at 
the present time Collins presented himself to him simply in the 
light of an ingenious young man, with rare conversational powers 
and wide interests, and with what Locke valued far more, an eager 
desire to find out the truth. No one can have read the tracts, An 



80 LOCKE. 

Enquiry concerning Huma?i Liberty, and Liberty and Necessity, 
without recognising the acuteness and directness of Collins' intel- 
lect, and these, we know, were qualities always peculiarly accept- 
able to Locke. Moreover, to encourage and bring forward younger 
men had invariably been one of his main delights. Hence we may, 
perhaps, abate our surprise at the apparently exaggerated language 
in which he addresses this friend, who was so much his junior in 
age, and who must have become known to him only so recently. 
" Why do you make yourself so necessary to me ? I thought my- 
self pretty loose from the world : but I feel you begin to fasten me 
to it again. For you make my life, since I have had your friendship, 
much more valuable to me than it was before." "If I were now 
setting out in the world, I should think it my great happiness to 
have such a companion as you, who had a relish for truth, would 
in earnest seek it with me, from whom I might receive it undis- 
guised, and to whom I might communicate freely what I thought 
true. Believe it, my good friend, to love truth for truth's sake is 
the principal part of human perfection in this world and the seed- 
plot of all other virtues, and, if I mistake not, you have as much 
of it as I ever met with in anybody." Then he adds pathetically, 
but with a tone of hopefulness in the labours of others which is 
not commonly found amongst old men, " When I consider how 
mtich of my life has been trifled away in beaten tracks, where I 
vamped on with others only to follow those that went before us, I 
cannot but think I have just as much reason to be proud as if I 
had travelled all England, and, if you will, France too, only to ac- 
quaint myself with the roads and be able to tell how the highways 
lie, wherein those of equipage, and even the herd too, travel. Now, 
methinks — and these are often old men's dreams — I see openings to 
truth and direct paths leading to it, wherein a little industry and 
application would settle one's mind with satisfaction, and leave no 
darkness or doubt. But this is at the end of my day, when my sun 
in setting ; and though the prospect it has given me be what I 
would not for anything be without — there is so much irresistible 
truth, beauty, and consistency in it — yet it is for one of your age, I 
think I ought to say for yourself, to set about it." What were 
those " openings to truth and direct paths leading to it? " Were 
they merely the delusive visions of an old man's fancies, or had he 
really formed wider conceptions of science, and pictured to himself 
more precise and fertile methods of reaching it ? The sciences, it 
is needless to observe, have grown vastly since Locke's day; the 
methods of scientific research are far more numerous, more accu- 
rate, richer in their results. Had Locke, in his thoughts at this 
time, at all anticipated the courses which enquiry and knowledge 
have since taken ? 

The letter to Collins, from which I have just quoted, was written 
on Oct. 29, 1703. Within a year of that date the end came. The 
wonder, indeed, is that, with his persistent malady, aggravated ap- 
parently in these latter years with other disorders, Locke's life had 
continued so long. The reasons are probably to be sought in his 



LOCKE. 8 1 

unfailing cheerfulness, in the variety of interests which diverted his 
mind from the thought of* his own ailments, and in the judicious 
manner in which he regulated his exercise and diet. Of these per- 
sonal traits something may conveniently here be said. The re- 
markable cheerfulness of his disposition, his lively sense of humour, 
and his power of extracting amusement from all that was going on 
around him, have frequently come before us in the course of this 
biography. His temper was not moody, like that of so many men 
of letters, but pre-eminently sociable. When not actually engaged 
in his studies, he always liked to be in company, and enjoyed es- 
pecially the society of young people and children. He had a happy 
knack of talking to his companions for the time being on the sub- 
jects which interested them most, and in this way he gained a very 
extensive knowledge of the various kinds of business, and of a va- 
riety of arts and crafts. To working people he was often able to 
give useful hints as to their own employments. This union of con- 
versational qualities, grave and gay, invariably made him a welcome 
addition to any company, young or old, gentle or simple. An even 
temper, and a combination of happy gifts of this kind, will carry a 
man through much suffering, bodily and mental. From any mental 
troubles, on his own account, Locke seems, during these latter 
years of his life, to have been, remarkably free. From bodily suf- 
fering he was rarely exempt, but he always endured it with resig- 
nation, and endeavoured to obviate its causes by every precaution, 
which his prudence or medical skill suggested. Thus, we have 
seen that, whenever it was possible, he preferred the quiet life and 
pure air of the country to the many attractions which the capital 
must have offered to a man with his wide acquaintance, and with 
so many political and literary interests. In diet he practised an 
abstemiousness very rare among men of that age. His ordinary 
drink was water, and to this habit he attributed not only his length 
of years, but also the extraordinary excellence of his eyesight. Till 
recently, a curious relic of Locke's water-drinking habits was pre- 
served in the shape of a large mortar of spongy stone, which 
acted as a natural filter, and which he used to call his brew-house. 
He was assiduous in taking exercise, and was specially fond of 
walking and gardening. In the latter years of his life he used to 
ride out slowly every day after dinner. When advising his friend 
Clarke about his health, he says, " I know nothing so likely to pro- 
duce quiet sleep as riding about gently in the air for many hours 
every day," and then, like a truly wise doctor, he adds, " If your 
mind can be brought to contribute a little its part to the laying 
aside troublesome ideas, I could hope this may do much." At last, 
when he was no longer able to sit on horseback, he commissioned 
Collins to have an open carriage specially made for him, the prin- 
ciple on which it was to be constructed being that " convenient 
carries it before ornamental." 

In November, 1703, the Heads of Houses at Oxford — who at 
that time constituted the governing body, and through whose re« 

6 



82 LOCKE. 

pressive and. reactionary administration the evil genius of Laud 
then and long afterwards continued to cast a blight on the Univer- 
sity — resolved to discourage the reading of Locke's Essay. The 
attempt was futile, as they relied, not on coercion, but on the in- 
fluence of their authority, which appears to have been held very 
cheap. Locke was now far too eminent a man to be troubled by so 
anile a demonstration of folly. " I take what has been done "as a 
recommendation of my book to the world," he says, in a letter to 
Collins ; and then he promises himself and his friend much merri- 
ment on the subject when they next meet. 

Locke's last literary labour appears to have been his Fourth 
Letter for Toleration. Jonas Proast, after a long interval, had re- 
turned to the charge in a pamphlet published in 1704; and Locke, 
unfortunately, thought it incumbent on him to reply, though he had 
long ceased to pay any regard to the assailants of the Essay. The 
Letter is unfinished. Its last words cannot have been written 
long before Locke's death. 

The winter of 1703-04 seems to have been peculiarly trying to 
his health. He hardly expected to live through it ;" but he still 
maintained his cheerfulness, and followed his usual employments. 
On the nth of April, 1704, he made his will — perhaps not his first. 
To most of his friends, relatives, and dependents he left some 
remembrance ; but the bulk of his personal property he left to 
Frank Masham and Peter King, the latter of whom was sole ex- 
ecutor and residuary legatee. All his manuscripts were left to 
King. Many of these were published for the first time by the 
seventh Lord King, in his Life of Locke. His land he designedly 
did not will, and so it devolved by law, in equal shares, on his two 
cousins, Peter King and Peter Stratton. His funeral was to be 
conducted without any ostentation, and what it would otherwise 
have cost was to be divided amongst four poor labourers at Oates. 

The approach of summer had not its usual restorative effect 
upon him. On the other hand, all the bad symptoms of his dis- 
ease increased. To use his own expression, " the dissolution of 
the cottage was not far off." In a letter, written on the 1st of June, 
he earnestly pressed King to come to him, that he might pass 
some of the last hours of his life " in the conversation of one who 
is not only the nearest but the dearest to me of any man in the 
world." Both King and Collins seem to have visited him frequently 
during the last months of his life ; and their society being cheerful, 
and the topics of their conversation interesting, he appears to have 
taken great pleasure in their company. He did not, however, find 
equal enjoyment in the visit of Dr. Edward Fowler, Bishop of 
Gloucester, who, like himself, was in a bad state of health. " I 
find two groaning people make but an uncomfortable concert." 
The moral he draws is, that men should enjoy their health and 
youth while they have it, " to all the advantages and improvements 
of an innocent and pleasant life," remembering that merciless 
old age is in pursuit of them. The lamp of life was now dimly 



LOCKE. 



83 



flickering, but once more it burnt up in the socket before go- 
ing out forever. Peter King had been married on the 10th of 
September, and he and his bride must be received with all clue 
honours at Oates. King was asked to cater for his own wedding 
feast, and goodly and dainty is the list of delicacies which he was 
to buy- But something, perhaps, might be omitted in which Mrs. 
King took special delight. " If there be anything that you can 
find your wife loves, be sure that provision be made of that, and 
plentifully, whether I have mentioned it or no." The feast was to 
be cooked by "John Gray, who was bred up in my Lord Shaftes- 
bury's kitchen, and was my Lady Dowager's cook." The wedded 
pair arrived at Oates towards the end of the month, and well can we 
picture to ourselves the pride and pleasure with which the genial old 
man entertained the wife of his cousin and adopted son — the adopted 
son whom he had rescued from the grocer's shop at Exeter, and 
whose future eminence he must now have pretty clearly foreseen. 
A few days after King left Oates, he solemnly committed to him 
by letter the care of Frank Masham. " It is my earnest request 
to you to take care of the youngest son of Sir Francis and Lady 
Masham in ail his concerns, as if he were your brother. Take 
care to make him a good, an honest, and an upright man. I have 
left my directions with him to follow your advice, and I know he 
will do it : for he never refused to do what I told him was fit." 
Then, turning to King himself, he says, " I wish you all manner 
of prosperity in this world, and the everlasting happiness of the 
world to come. That I loved you, I think you are convinced." 

Peter King certainly executed the dying request of his cousin, 
so far as Frank Masham's material interests were concerned. Soon 
after he became Lord Chancellor, Frank Masham was appointed 
to the newly constituted office of Accountant-General in the Court 
of Chancery, a lucrative post, conferring the same status as a 
Mastership. 

Locke retained his faculties and his cheerfulness to the last ; 
but he grew gradually weaker day by day. " Few people," says 
Lady Masham, " do so sensibly see death approach them as he did." 
A few days before his death he received the sacrament from the 
parish minister, professing his perfect charity with all men, and his 
"sincere communion with the whole Church of Christ, by whatever 
name Christ's followers call themselves." In the last hours he 
talked much with the Mashams about their eternal concerns. As 
for himself he had lived long enough, and enjoyed a happy life ; 
but he looked forward to a better. At length, on the afternoon of 
the 28th of October, the spirit left him, and the earthly tabernacle 
was dissolved. His body is buried in the churchyard of High 
Laver, in a pleasant spot on the south side of the church. The 
Latin epitaph on the wall above the tomb was written by himself. 
It tells us that he had lived content with his own insignificance : 
that, brought up among letters, he had advanced just so far as to 
make an acceptable offering to truth alone : if the traveller wanted 



8 4 



LOCKE. 



an example of good life, he would find one in the Gospel ; if of vice, 
would that he could find one nowhere ; if of mortality, there and 
everywhere. 

" His death," says Lady Masham, "was, like his life, truly pious, 
yet natural, easy, and unaffected ; nor can time, I think, ever pn> 
duce a more eminent example of reason and religion than he was, 
living and dying." 9 



LOCKE. 



85 



CHAPTER VIII. 

ESSAY ON THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. 

"Were it fit to trouble thee," says Locke in his Epistle to the 
Reader, "with the history of this Essay, I should tell thee that 
five or six friends meeting at my chamber, and discoursing on a 
subject very remote from this, found themselves quickly at a stand 
by the difficulties that rose on every side. After we had a while 
puzzled ourselves, without coming any nearer a resolution of those 
doubts which perplexed us, it came into my thoughts that we took 
a wrong course; and that, before we set ourselves upon inquiries 
of that nature, it was necessary to examine our own abilities, and 
see what objects our understandings were or were not fitted to deal 
with. This I proposed to the company, who all readily assented ; 
and thereupon it was agreed that this should be our first inquiry." 

This passage may serve not only to describe the occasion of 
Locke's Essay, but also to indicate the circumstance which con- 
stitutes the peculiar merit and originality of Locke as a philoso- 
pher. The science which we now call Psychology, or the study of 
mind, had hitherto, amongst modern writers, been almost exclu- 
sively subordinated to the interests of other branches of specula* 
tion. Some exception must, indeed, be made in favour of Hobbes 
and Gassendi, Descartes and Spinoza ; but all these authors treated 
the questions of psychology somewhat cursorily, while the two 
former seem usually to have had in view the illustration of some 
favourite position in physics or ethics, the two latter the ultimate 
establishment of some proposition relating to the nature or attri- 
butes of God. We may say then, without much exaggeration, that 
Locke was the first of modern writers to attempt at once an inde- 
pendent and a complete treatment of the phenomena of the human 
mind, of their mutual relations, of their causes and limits. His 
object was, as he himself phrases it, " to inquire into the original, 
certainty, and extent of human knowledge : together with the 
grounds and degrees of belief, opinion, and assent." This task he 
undertakes not in the dogmatic spirit of his predecessors, but in 
the critical spirit which he may be said to have almost inaugurated. 
As far as it is possible for a writer to divest himself of prejudice, 
and to set to his work with a candid and open mind, seeking help and 
information from all quarters, Locke does so. And the effect of 
his candour on his first readers must have been enhanced by the 
fact, not always favourable to his precision, that, as far as he" can. 



86 LOCKE. 

he throws aside the technical terminology of the schools, and em- 
ploys the language current in the better kinds of ordinary literature 
and the well-bred society of his own time. The absence of pedantry 
and of the parti pris in a philosophical work was at that time so rare 
a recommendation that, no doubt these characteristics contributed 
largely to the rapid circulation and the general acceptance of the 
Essay. 

The central idea, which dominates Locke's work, is that all our 
knowledge is derived from experience. But this does not strike us 
so much as a thesis to be maintained as a conclusion arrived at 
after a vast amount of patient thought and inquiry. Have we any 
ideas independent of experience ? or, as Locke phrases it, are there 
any Innate Principles in the mind ? * 

" It is an established opinion amongst some men that there are in the 
Understanding certain Innate Principles, some Primary Notions, kowox 
ewoiai, characters, as it were, stamped upon the mind of man, which the 
Soul receives in its very first being and brings into the world with it." 

This is the opinion which Locke examines and refutes in the 
first, or introductory, book of the Essay. It has often been ob- 
jected that he mistakes and exaggerates the position which he is at- 
tacking. And so far as his distinguished predecessor, Descartes, is 
concerned (though to what extent Locke has him in mind, his habit 
of not referring to other authors by name prevents us from know- 
ing), this is undoubtedly the case. For Descartes, though he fre- 
quently employs and accepts the expression " innate notions " or 
"innate ideas," concedes, as so many philosophers of the same 
school have done since, that this native knowledge is only implicit, 
and requires definite experiences to elicit it. Thus, in his notes on 
the Programme of Regius, he expressly compares these innate 
notions or ideas with the nobility which is characteristic of certain 
ancient stocks, or with diseases, such as gout or gravel, which are 
said to be " innate " in certain families, not" because the infants of 
those families suffer from these diseases in their mother's womb, 
but because they are born with a certain disposition or tendency to 
contract them." Here Descartes seems to have been on the very 
point of stumbling on the principle of heredity which, in the hands 
\)f recent physiologists and psychologists, has done so much towards 
reconciling rival theories on the nature and origin of knowledge 
and clearing up many of the difficulties which attach to this branch 
of speculation. It must be confessed, however, that in his better 
known works he often employs unguarded and unexplained expres- 
sions which might easily suggest the crude form of the a priori 
theory attacked by Locke. Still more is this the case with other 
authors, such as Lord Herbert of Cherbury and Dr. Ralph Cud- 
worth, whose works were in general circulation at the time when 
Locke was composing his Essay. Lord Herbert, though indeed he 
acknowledges that "common notions " (the expression by which he 
designates a priori principles) require an object to elicit them into 
consciousness, seems invariably to regard them as ready-made ideas 



LOCKE. 87 

implanted in the human mind from its very origin. They are given 
by an independent faculty, Natural Instinct, which is to be distin- 
guished from Internal Sense, External Sense, and Reasoning 
(" discursus "), the sources of our other ideas. They are to be 
found in every man, and universal consent is the main criterion by 
which they are to be discriminated. In fact, there can be no 
doubt that the dogma of Innate Ideas and Innate Principles, in the 
form attacked by Locke, was a natural, if not the legitimace, inter- 
pretation of much of the philosophical teaching of the time, and 
that it was probably the form in which that teaching was popularly 
understood. It lay, moreover, as Locke's phrase is, along the 
" common road," which was travelled by the majority of men who 
cared about speculative subjects at all, and from which it was novel, 
and therefore dangerous, to diverge. 

The most effective, perhaps, of Locke's arguments against this 
doctrine is his challenge to the advocates of Innate Principles to 
produce them, and show what and how many they are. Did men 
find such innate propositions stamped on their minds, nothing could 
be more easy than this. " There could be no more doubt about 
their number than there is about the number of our fingers ; and 
•'tis like, then, every system would be. ready to give them as by 
tale." Now "'tis enough to make one suspect that the supposition 
of such innate principles is but an opinion taken up at random; 
since those who talk so confidently of them are so sparing to tell 
us which they are." (Bk. I., ch. iii., § 14.) The great majority, 
indeed, of those who maintain the existence of innate principles 
and ideas attempt no enumeration of them. Those who do attempt 
such an enumeration differ in the lists which they draw up, and, 
moreover, as Locke shows in the case of the five practical principles 
of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, give no sufficient reason why many 
other propositions, which they regard as secondary and derived, 
should not be admitted to the same rank with the so-called innate 
principles, which they assume to the primary and independent. 
Locke is here treading on safer ground than in many of his other 
criticisms. The fact is that it is impossible clearly to discriminate 
between those propositions which are axiomatic and those which 
are derived — or, in the language of the theory which Locke is com- 
bating, between those which are innate and those which are adven- 
titious. Race, temperament, mental capacity, habit, education, 
produce such differences between man and man, that a proposition 
which to one man appears self-evident and unquestionable will by 
another be admitted only after considerable hesitation, while a third 
will regard it as doubtful, or even false. Especially is this the case, 
as Locke does not fail to point out, with many of the principles of 
religion and morals, which have now been received by so constant 
a tradition in most civilized nations that they have come to be re- 
garded as independent of reason, and, if not "ingraven on the 
mind " from its birth, at least exempt from discussion and criticism. 
The, circumstance, however, that they are not universally acknowl- 
edged shows that to mankind in general, at any rate, they are not 



88 LOCKE, 

axiomatic, and that, however clear and convincing the reasons for 
them may be, at all events those reasons require to be stated. It 
was this determined and vigorous protest against multiplying as- 
sumptions and attempting to withdraw a vast mass of propositions, 
both speculative and practical, from the control and revision of 
reason, that perhaps, constituted the -most distinctive and valuable 
part of Locke's teaching. 

Having cleared from his path the theory of Innate Principles, 
Locke proceeds, in the Second Book, to inquire how the mind comes 
to be furnished with its knowledge. Availing himself of a metaphor 
which had been commonly employed by the Stoics, but which 
reaches as far back as Aristotle and Plato, and even as yEschylus, 
he compares the mind to "white paper, void of all characters, with- 
out any ideas," and then asks : 

" Whence comes it by that vast store, which the busy and boundless 
Fancy of Man has painted on it, with an almost endless variety ? "Whence 
has it all the materials of Reason and Knowledge ? To this I answer in 
one word, from Experience : In that all our knowledge is founded ; and 
from that it ultimately derives itself. Our observation employed either 
about external or sensible objects, or about the internal operations of our 
minds perceived and reflected on by our selves, is that which supplies our 
Understandings with all the materials of thinking. These two are the 
Fountains of Knowledge from which all the ideas we have, or can natur- 
ally have, do spring." 

" First, our Senses, conversant about particular sensible objects, do 
convey into the mind several distinct perceptions of things, according to 
those various ways in which those objects do affect them. And thus we 
come by those ideas we have of Yellow, White, Heat, Cold, Soft, Hard, 
Bitter, Sweet, and all those which we call Sensible Qualities, which when 
I say the senses convey into the mind, I mean they from external objects 
convey into the mind what produces there those Perceptions. This 
great source of most of the Ideas we have, depending wholly upon our 
senses, and derived by them to the Understanding, I call SENSA- 
TION." 

" Secondly, the other Fountain, from which Experience furnisheth the 
Understanding with Ideas, is the Perception of the operations of our own 
minds within us, as it is employed about the ideas it has got ; which oper- 
ations, when the soul comes to reflect on and consider, do furnish the 
Understanding with another set of ideas which could not be had from 
things without; and such are Perception, Thinking, Doubting, Believing, 
Reasoning, Knowing, Willing, and all the different actings of our own 
minds, which we being conscious of, and observing in our selves, do from 
these receive into our Understandings as distinct ideas as we do from 
bodies affecting our senses. This source of ideas every man has wholly 
in himself. And though it be not sense, as having nothing to do with ex- 
ternal objects, yet it is very like it, and might properly enough be called 
Internal Sense. But as I call the other Sensation, so I call this RELEC- 
TION, the ideas it affords being such only as the miriM gets by reflecting 
on its own operations within itself. By Reflection, then, in the following 
part of this Discourse, I would be understood to mean that notice which 
the mind takes of its own operations and the manner of them, by reason 
whereof there come to be Ideas of these operations in the Understanding. 



LOCKE. 8 9 

These two, I say, namely, external material things, as the objects of Sen- 
sation, and-the operations of our own minds within, as the objects of Re- 
flection, are. to me the only originals from whence all our ideas take their 
beginning. The term operations here I use in a large sense, as compre- 
hending not barely the actions of the mind about its ideas, but some sort 
of passions arising sometimes from them, such as is the satisfaction or 
uneasiness arising from any thoughts." 

" The Understanding seems to me not to have the least glimmering 
of any ideas which it doth not receive from one of these two. External 
objects furnish the mind with the ideas of sensible qualities, which are all 
those different perceptions they produce in us; and the mind furnishes 
the Understanding with ideas of its own operations." (Bk. II., ch. i., 
§§ 2-5-) 

In deriving our knowledge from two distinct sources, Sensation 
and Reflection, Locke is advancing a position altogether different 
from that of what is properly called the Sensationalist school of 
philosophers. Gassendi and Hobbes before him, Condillac and 
Helvetius after him. found the ultimate source of all our knowledge 
in the impression of sense. The emphatic words of Hobbes, 
standing in the forefront of the Leviathan, are : — " The original of 
all the thoughts of men is that which we call Sense, for there is 
no conception in a man's mind which hath not at first, totally or 
by parts, been begotten upon the organs of sense." And Condillac, 
aiming at a theory still more simple, derives from sensations not 
only all our knowledge but all our faculties. " The other foun- 
tain," then, of Locke has, we must recollect, a peculiar significance 
as distinguishing his psychology from that of the sensationalist 
writers who preceded and who followed him. His theory of the 
origin of knowledge may fairly be called an experiential, but it 
cannot with any truth be called a sensationalist theory. 

m The rest of the Second Book of the Essay is mainly taken up 
with the attempt to enumerate our simple ideas of Sensation and 
Reflection, and to resolve into them our other ideas, however com- 
plex. To follow Locke into these details would be to re-write the 
Essay. I propose simply to direct the attention of the reader to 
a few salient points. 

Of " Simple Ideas of Sensation," some " come into our minds 
by one Sense only." Such are the various colours, sounds, tastes, 
and smells, Heat and Cold, and the sensation of Resistance or 
Impenetrability, which Locke denominates Solidity. " The Idea 
we get by more thnn one sense are of Space or Extension, Figure, 
Rest, and Motion." . * 

The" Simple Ideas of Reflection," which the mind acquires, 
when " it turns its view inward upon itself, and observes its own 
actions about those ideas it has received from without," are 
mainly two, namely, Perception or Thinking, and Volition or 
Willing. 

" There be other simple ideas, which convey themselves into 
the mind by all the ways of Sensation and Reflection, namely, 
Pleasure or Delight, Pain or Uneasiness, Power, Existence, Unity, 
(Bk. II., ch. vii., § i.) J 



9° 



LOCKE. 



" These simple Ideas, the materials of all our knowledge, are suggested 
and furnished to the mind only by those two ways above mentioned, 
namely, Sensation and Reflection. When the Understanding is once 
stored with these simple ideas, it has the power to repeat, compare, and 
unite them, even to an almost infinite variety, and so can make at pleas- 
ure new complex ideas. But it is not in the power of the most exalted 
Wit or enlarged Understanding, by any quickness or variety of thoughts, 
to invent or frame one new simple idea in the mind, not taken by the 
ways before mentioned. Nor can any force of the Understanding destroy 
those that are there : the dominion of man, in this little world of his own 
understanding, being much-what the same as it is in the great world of 
visible things, wherein his power, however managed by art and skill, 
reaches no farther than to compound and divide the materials that are 
made to his hand, but can do nothing towards the making the least parti- 
cle of new matter or destroying one atom of what is already in being. 
The same inability will every one find in himself who shall go about to 
fashion in his Understanding any simple idea not received in by his senses 
from external objects or by reflection from the operations of his own 
mind about them." (Bk. II., ch. ii., § 2.) 

In the reception of these simple ideas, Locke regards the mind 
as merely passive. It can no more refuse to have them, alter or 
blot them out, than a mirror can refuse to receive, alter, or obliter- 
ate the images reflected on it. The Understanding, before the 
entrance of simple ideas, is like a dark room, and external and in* 
ternal sensation are the windows by which light is let in. But 
when the light has once penetrated into this dark recess, the Un- 
derstanding has an almost unlimited power of modifying and trans- 
forming it. It can create complex ideas, and that in an infinite 
variety* out of its simple ideas, and this it does chiefly by combin- 
ing, comparing, and separating them. 

" This shows man's power, and its way of operation, to be much what 
the same in the material and intellectual world. For the materials in 
both being such as he has no power over, either to make or destroy, all 
that man can do is either to unite them together, or to set them by one 
another, or wholly separate them." (Bk. II., ch. xn., § 1.) 

The complex ideas are classified under three heads, modes, 
which maybe either simple or mixed, substances, and relations. 
Here,\owever, my analvsis must stop, and I must content myself 
with giving a few examples of the manner in which Locke attempts 
to resolve"" complex ideas " into " simple " ones. 

The idea of Infinity, to take one of his most celebrated reso- 
lutions, is merely a simple mode of Quantity, as Immensity is a 
simple mode of Space, and Eternity of Duration. All alike are 
negative ideas, arising whenever we allow the mind "an endless 
progression of thought," without any effort to arrest it. '* How 
often soever" a man doubles an unit of space, be it a "mile, or 
diameter of the earth, or the Orbis Magnus," or any otherwise 
multiplies it, "he finds that, after he has continued this doubling 
in his thoughts and enlarged his idea as much as he pleases, he 



LOCKE. 



9* 



has no more reason to stop, nor is one jot nearer the end of such 
addition, than he was at first setting out; the power of enlarging 
his idea of Space by farther additions remaining still the same, he 
hence takes idea of infinite space." (Bk. II., ch. xvii., § 3.) 

With the idea of " Substance " Locke is fairly baffled. If we 
examine our idea of a horse, a man, a piece of gold, &c, we are 
able to resolve it into a number of simple idea, such as extension, 
figure, solidity, weight, colour, &c, co-existing together. But, ac- 
cording to Locke, who, in this respect, was merely following in the 
track of the generally received philosophy of his time, there is, in 
addition to all these qualities, a substratum ki which they inhere, or, 
to use his own language, " wherein they do subsist, and from which 
they do result." Now of the various qualities we can form a clear 
idea and give an intelligible account of the substratum ? Locke here 
is bold enough to break off from the orthodox doctrine of the time, 
and confess candidly that we cannot. The idea of this Substratum 
or Substance is a " confused idea of something to which the qualities 
belong, and in which they subsist." The name Substance denotes 
a Support, "though it be certain we have no clear or distinct idea 
of that thing we suppose a support." 

" So that if any one will examine himself concerning his notion of pure 
Substance in general, he will find he has no oilier idea of it at all but only 
a supposition of he knows not what Support of such qualities which are 
capable of producing simple ideas in us; which qualities are commonly 
called Accidents. If anyone should be asked what is the subject wherein 
Colour or Weight inheres, he would have nothing to say but the solid ex- 
tended parts. And if he were demanded what is it that Solidity and Ex- 
tension inhere in, he would not be in a much better case than the Indian 
who, saying that the world was supported by a great elephant, was asked 
what the elephant rested on ? To which his answer was, a great tortoise. 
But, being again pressed to know what gave support to the broad-backed 
tortoise, replied, something, he knew not what. And thus here, as in all 
other cases, where we use words without having clear and distinct ideas, 
we talk like children ; who, being questioned what such a thing is, which 
they know not, readily give this satisfactory answer, that it is something; 
which in truth signifies no more, when so used, either by children or men, 
but that they know not what, and that the thing they pretend to know and 
talk of is what they have no distinct idea of at all, and so are perfectly 
ignorant of it and in the dark. (Bk. II., ch. xxiii., § 2. ) 

No wonder that the next step in philosophy was to get rid 
altogether of this " something, we know not what." For, if we 
know not what it is, how do we know that it exists and is not a 
mere fiction of the Schools ? This step was taken by Berkeley, as 
respects matter, and by Hume the same negative criticism which 
Berkeley confines to matter was boldly, and, as it seems to me, far 
less successfully and legitimately extended to mind- Indeed, were 
it not for his express assurance to the contrary, we should often be 
tempted to think that Locke himself regarded this distinction of 
Substance and Accident, so far, at least, as it affects Matter and its 
attributes, as untenable, and was anxious to insinuate a doubt as to 
the very existence of the " unknown somewhat." 



9 2 LOCKE, 

In this chapter, Locke mantains that there is no more difficulty, 
if indeed so much, in the notion of immaterial spirit as a body. 
" Our idea of Body, as I think, is an extended solid substance, 
capable of communicating motion by impulse ; and our idea of our 
Soul, as an immaterial Spirit, is of a substance that thinks, and has 
a power of exciting motion in body by Will or Thought." (§ 22.) 
Now, it is "no more a contradiction that Thinking should exist 
separate and independent from Solidity, than it is a contradiction 
that Solidity should exist separate and independent from Thinking, 
they being both but simple ideas independent one from another. 
And, having as clear and distinct ideas in us of Thinking as of 
Solidity, I know not why we may not as well allow a thinking thing 
without solidity, that is immaterial, to exist, as a solid thing with- 
out thinking, that is matter, to exist ; especially since it is harder to 
conceive how Thinking should exist without Matter, than how 
Matter should think." (§ 32.) 

In the Fourth Book (ch. iii., § 6), however, he gave great scandal 
by suggesting the possibility that Matter might think, that it was 
not much more repugnant to our conceptions that God might, 
if he pleased, u superadd to Matter a Faculty of Thinking, than that 
he should superadd to it another substance with a faculty of think- 
ing." At the same time, he regarded it as no less than a contradic- 
tion to suppose that Matter, "which is evidently in its own nature 
void of sense and thought," should be the "eternal first thinking 
Being," or God Himself ; and, in his First Letter to the Bishop of ■ 
Worcester, he grants that in us (as distinguished from the lower 
animals) it is in the highest degree probably that the thinking sub- 
stance " is immaterial. Materialism, therefore, as ordinary under- 
stood, is certainly no part of Locke's system. 

In discussing the idea of Substance, Locke seems generally to 
be thinking more of Matter than Mind. But, in an early part of 
the Essay (Bk. II., ch. xiii., § 18), he very rightly begs those who 
talk so much of Substance " to consider whether applying it, as 
they do, to infinite incomprehensible God, to infinite Spirit, and 
to Body, it be in the same sense, and whether it stands for the 
same idea when each of those three so different beings are called 
Substances'." As applied respectively to Matter and to Mind 
(whether finite or infinite), it appears to me that the word Substance 
assumes a very different meaning, and that the absurdities which it 
is possible to fix on the distinction between Matter and its attributes 
by no means extended to the distinction between Mind and its oper- 
ations. For an union of certain forces or powers affecting our 
organisms in certain ways seems to exhaust our conception of ex- 
ternal objects (the notion of externality, I conceive, being quite in- 
dependent of that of the Substrate " matter "), but no similar en- 
umeration of mental acts and feelings seems adequately to take the 
place of that " Self," or " I," of which we regard these as merely 
phases and modifications. It would much conduce to clearness in 
philosophical discussions if, at least amongst those who admit the 
dualism of matter and mind, the word Snbstance, whenever applied 



LOCKE. o, 

to incorporal objects, were replaced by the word Mind, and, when- 
ever applied to corporeal objects, by the word Matter. 

The Second Book closes, in the Fourth and subsequently 
editions, with a short but very interesting Chapter on the " Associ- 
ation of Ideas." The student of Mental Philosophy will find it in- 
structive to compare this Chapter with the previous account given 
by Hobbes [Human Nature ch. iv. ; Leviathan, Pt. I., ch. iii.), and 
the subsequent account given by Hume {Ltuman Nature, Pt. I., § 4 ; 
Essays on Human Understanding, § 3), of the same phenomena. 
Locke appears to have been the first author to use the exact * expres- 
sion "Association of Ideas," and it is curious to find in the chapter 
(§ 5) the word " inseparable," so familiar to the readers of recent 
works on psychology, already applied to designate certain kinds of as- 
sociation. Some ideas, indeed, have, he says, a natural correspond- 
ence, but others, that " in themselves are not at all of kin," " come to 
be so united in some men's minds that one no sooner at any time 
comes into the understanding than the whole Gang, always insepar- 
able, show themselves together." 

The following passage on what may be called the associations 
of antipathy affords a good instance of Locke's power of homely 
and opposite illustration : 

"Many children imputing the pain they endured at school to their 
books they were corrected for, so join those ideas together, that a book 
becomes their aversion, and they are never reconciled to the study and use 
of them all their lives after ; and thus reading beccmes a torment to them, 
which otherwise possibly they might have made the great pleasure of 
their lives. There are rooms convenient enough, that some men cannot 
study in, and fashions of vessels, which though never so clean and com- 
modious, they cannot drink out of, and that by reason of some accidental 
ideas which are annexed to them and make them offensive. And who is 
there that hath not observed some man to flag at the appearance or in the 
company of some certain person not otherwise superior to him, but be- 
cause, having once on some occasion got the ascendant, the idea of author- 
ity and distance goes along with that of the person, and he that has been 
thus subjected is not able to separate them." 

Had Locke's Essay ended with the Second Book, we should 
hardly have detected in it any incompleteness. It might have been 
regarded as an analytical work on the nature and origin of our 
ideas, or, in other words, on the element of our knowledge. There 
are, however, a third and fourth book — the former treating "Of 
Words," the latter " Of Knowledge and Opinion." Locke's notion 
appears to have been that, after treating of " Ideas," mainly as re- 
garded in themselves, it was desirable to consider them as com- 
bined in Judgments or Propositions, and to estimate the various 

* Sir W. Hamilton refers to La Chambre (Systhne de V 'Ame : Paris, 1664) as having 
anticipated Locke in the use of this expression. In Liv. IV., ch. ii., art. 9, La Chambre 
speaks of " l'Union et la Liaison des Images," but I cannot find that he approaches any 
mearer to the now established phraseology 



94 LOCKE. 

degrees of assent which we give or ouo-hf t« • 
ments, when formed. The Fourth 2 g ' Ve to sllch 

takes the place and was ,JJZ J ° k thus ' t0 a certain e 
the Logic o^ the'lcll™ ^ ^ '° * «» ph 
in the Abstract of the &„»'"!'„ ? ° te Loc ^'s own Ian 
sider the nature and mannefof hl° ^ 5 little nearer '' 
much to do with propose ons andT, f °1 edg ?' 1 found !t ' 
necessity, were so m°£X°th it ?wS W ° rdS ' either b y cust ' 
of knowledge with that clTarn^. ""as impossible to disc 
thing first of words and h„~ ,7" Sh ° U,d > **« saying : 

theSundseS: ^fc' aft ^ B °° k are »»»k»b 
tage by all who wish to be iut on H-^ "? ^ S*** 8 ' 3< 
produced by misleading £ ;™V h g "f d a « ainst the delu 
Fori " which* B^d describes a] fh?T t t langua g e -those " 

versal Propositions ; of the lo Jic/l t • trUth an , d Certaint y of 
the evidence for the existent ?n Cal ^ x ' omS >r Q £ ,aWS of thought 
the Degrees of ZSt fo EnthSas^ Jf*f " nd ^ 
attractive regions it is impossible I ' °/„ Enor - Into tl 

the reader who wishes to'se ^ examples of? ^™ ™ y aUthor - 
sense and, at the same time, to uTde,^ t a nri ^e ", St , r °? g P rac 
and so constantly accorded to tbe A i ,, P°P l,Ia rity so . 

at least with theU ch^lVilt^Zt^ m * ke *« 



oriVin nf ™„. i, £_, lo ° n ? ? n] y- the accoun 



vite attention. 



• the ultimate origin of our toowK .?t ?" Iy : the account 
ject of the Essay. Knowledge, which forms the main sh 

perienct' **J%£^3to* % ™ pledge from J 
of the individual In ordJr to £' V as s™ P ly the experier 
indeed necessary that we should ^^ thls . ex Periencef it v 
ties." But of t^se-f^ties»h^ e Certain ." Cerent fac 
that God has « furnished " or « ^ g T,f n ° 0ther account th' 
the Dens ex ;;rf«Jwasas much an i " S ^ them ' ™ 
thephilosophvof Locke and wa.inf ^^^d necessity 
yoked, as in" that of hi an'agonSs ultT* ^ in ^W\ 
to be given of the way in which we come to h Ifl W ^ aCC0U 
of the extraordinary 'facility we possTsVnf T ^ . facuIti ^ 

0Hect,were foreign ^^IT^^^^Td 



LOCKE. gt; 



ve only recently become a recognized branch of mental philoso- 
[ ,y. Hence it was that his system left so much unexplained. Not 
lv the very circumstance that we have "inherent faculties " at 
, but the wide differences of natural capacity which we observe 
tweerr one man or race and another, and the very early period 
which there spring up in the mind such notions as those of space, 
ne, equality, causality, and the like, are amongst the many diffi- 
lties which Locke's theory, in its bare and unqualified form, fails 
tisfactorily to answer. It was thus comparatively easy for Kant 
show that the problem of the origin of knowledge could not be 
t where Locke had left it; that our a ftosterioi'i experiences pre- 
ppose and are only intelligible through certain a priori percep- 
>ns and conceptions which the mind itself imposes upon them; 
, to use more accurate language, through certain a priori ele- 
cts in our perceptions and conceptions, which the mind contrib- 
es from itself. Thus the child appears, as soon as it is capable 
recognising any source of its impressions, to regard an object as 
.uatedJn space, an event as happening in time, circumstances 
lich have occurred together as likely to occur together again, 
at Kant's own account was defective in leaving this a priori ele- 
ent of our knowledge unexplained, or, at least, in attempting no 
:planation of it. The mind, according to him, is possessed of 
rtain Forms and Categories, which shape and co-ordinate the 
lpressions received from the external world, being as necessary 
the acquisition of experience, as experience is necessary to 
iciting them into consciousness. But here his analysis ends, 
e does not ask how the mind comes to be possessed of these 
Drms and Categories, nor does he satisfactorily determine the 
ecise relation in which they stand to the empirical elements of 
lowledge. When studying his philosophy, we seem indeed to be 
ice more receding to the mysterious region of Innate Ideas. But 
e mystery is removed at least several stages back, if we apply to 
e solution of these mental problems the principle of Heredity, 
hich has recently been found so potent in clearing up many of 
e difficulties connected with external nature. What are the 
Innate Ideas " of the older philosophers, or the Forms and Cat- 
jories of Kant, but certain tendencies of the mind to group phen- 
nena, the " fleeting objects of sense," under certain relations and 
:gard them under certain aspects ? And why should these ten- 
ancies be accounted for in any other way than that by which we 
*e accustomed to account for the tendency of an animal or plant, 
longing to any particular species, to exhibit, as it developes, the 
ivsical characteristics of the species to which it belongs ? The 
cistence of the various mental tendencies and aptitudes, so far as 
le individual is concerned, is, in fact, to be explained by the prin- 
ple of hereditary transmission. But how have these tendencies 
id aptitudes come to be formed in the race ? The most scientific 
lswer is that which, following the analogy of the theory now so 
idely admitted with respect to the physical structure of animals 
id plants, assigns their formation to the continuous operation, 



96 LOCKE. 

through a long series of ages, of causes acting uniformly, or al- 
most uniformly, in the same direction— in one word, of Evolu- 
tion. This explanation may have its difficulties but it is at any 
rate an attempt at a natural explanation where no other sucli 
attempt exists, and it has the merit of falling in with the ex- 
planations of corresponding phenomena now most generally ac- 
cepted amongst scientific men in other departments ofTknowledge. 
According to this theory, there is both an a -priori and an a 
posteriori element in our knowledge, or, to speak more accurately, 
there are both a priori and a posteriori conditions of our knowing, 
the a, posteriori condition being, as in all systems, individual experi- 
ence, the a prioti condition being inherited mental aptitudes, which, 
as a rule, become more marked and persistent with each successive 
transmission. Now Locke lays stress simply upon the a posteriori 
condition, though he recognises a certain kind of a prioti condi- 
tion in our " natural faculties," and the simple ideas furnished by 
reflecting on their operations. The very important condition, how- , 
ever, of inherited aptitudes facilitating the formation of certain 
general conceptions concurrently, or almost concurrently, with the 
presentation of individual experiences, did not occur to him as an 
element in the solution of the problem he had undertaken to an- 
swer, nor, in that stage of speculation, could it well have done so. 
His peculiar contribution to the task of solving this question con- 
sisted in his skilful and popular delineation of the a posteriori ele- 
ment in knowledge, and in his masterly exposure of the insuffi- 
ciency of the account of the a priori element, as then commonly 
given. Locke's own theory was afterwards strained by Hume and 
Hartley, and still more by his professed followers in France, such 
as Condillac and Helvetius, till at last, in the opinion of most com- 
petent judges, it snapped asunder. Then, under the massive, 
though often partial and obscu.e, treatment of Kant, came the re- 
habilitation of the a priori side of knowledge. In recent times, 
mainly by aid of the light thrown on it from other branches of in- 
quiry, a more thorough and scientific treatment of psychology has 
done much, as I conceive, towards completing and reconciling the 
two divergent theories which at one time seemed hopelessly to 
divide the world of philosophic thinkers. And yet, as it appears 
to me, the ultimate mystery which surrounds the beginnings of in- 
tellectual life on the globe has by no means been removed. 

As closely connected with this general criticism of Locke's system, 
or rather as presenting the defects just criticised under another form, 
I may notice the tendency of the Essay to bring into undue prom- 
inence the passive receptivities of the Mind, and to ignore its activity 
and spontaneity.* The metaphor of the tabula rasa, the sheet of 
"white paper," once admitted, exercises a warping influence over 
the whole work. The author is so busied with the variety of im- 
pressions from without, that he seems sometimes to ignore the reac- 
tion of the mind from within; And yet this one-sideness of Locke's 
conception of mind may easily be exaggerated. "When the Un- 
derstanding is once stored with simple ideas, it has the power to 



LOCKE. 



97 



repeat, compare, and unite them, even to an almost infinite variety, 
and so can make at pleasure new complex ideas." (Bk- II.,ch. ii., 
§ 2.) Moreover, amongst the simple ideas themselves are the ideas 
of Reflection, " being such as the mind gets by reflecting on its own 
operations." The system, in fact, assumes an almost ceaseless ac- 
tivity of mind, after the simple ideas of sensation have once entered 
it. But where it fails is in not recognising that mental reaction 
which is essental to the formation of even the simple ideas of sensa- 
tion themselves, as well as that spontaneous activity of mind which 
often seems to assert itself independently of the application of any 
stimulus from without. Here again a more scientific psychology 
than was possible in Locke's day comes to our aid, and shows, 
as is done by Mr. Bain and other recent writers, that the 
nerves, stored with energy, often discharge themselves of their 
own accord, and that movement is at least as much an original factor 
in animal life as is sensation, while sometimes it even precedes it 
in time. Had the constant interaction of mental activity and 
mental receptivity, producing a campound in which it is often almost 
impossible to disentangle the elements, been duly recognised by 
Locke, it would certainly have made his philosophy less simple, 
hut it would have made it more true to facts. Physiology, however, 
was in his days in far too backward a state itself to throw much 
light upon Psychology. And the reaction against the prevailing 
doctrine of Innate Ideas naturally led to a system in which the in- 
fluences of external circumstances, of education and habit, were 
exaggerated at the expense of the native powers, or as they might 
more appropriately be called the inherited aptitudes, and the spon- 
taneous activity ot the mind. 

Here, tempting as it is to follow my author along the many 
tracks of psychological, metaphysical, and logical discussion which 
he always pursues with sagacity, candour, and good sense, if not 
always with the consistency and profundity which we should re- 
quire from later writers, my criticism must necessarily end. 

Before, however, finally dismissing the Essay, I must pause to 
ask what was the main work in the history of philosophy and 
thought which it accomplished. Many of its individual doctrines 
doubtless could not now be defended against the attacks of hostile 
criticism, and some even of those which are true in the main, are inad- 
equate or one-sided. But its excellence lies in its tone, its language, 
its method, its general drift, its multiplicity of topics, the direction 
which it gave to the thoughts and studies of refiectino- men for 
many generations subsequent to its appearance. Of the tone of 
candour and open-mindedness which prevades it. of the unscholastic 
and agreeable form in which it is written, and of the great variety 
of interesting topics which it starts, I have spoken already. Its 
method, though not absolutely new-, even in modern times, for it is at 
least, to some extent, the method of Descartes, if not, in a smaller de- 
gree, ofHobbes and Gassendi, was still not common at the time of its 
appearance. Instead of stating a series of preconceived opinions, 
or of dogmas borrowed from some dominant school, in a systematic 



9 8 LOCKE. 

form, Locke sets to work to examine the structure of his own mind, 
and to analyse into their elements the ideas which he finds there. 
This, the introspective method, as it has been called, though un- 
doubtedly imperfect, for it requires to be supplemented by the 
study of the minds of other men, if not of the lower animals, as 
made known by their acts, and words, and history, is yet a great 
advance on the purely a ftrio?'i, and often fanciful, methods which 
preceded it. Nor do we fail to find in the Essay some employ- 
ment of that comparative method to which I have just alluded : 
witness the constant references to children and savages in the first 
book, and the stress which is laid on the variety of moral sen- 
timent existing amongst mankind. This inductive treatment of 
philosophical problems, mainly introspective, but in some measure 
also comparative, which was extremely rare in Locke's time, be- 
came almost universal afterwards. Closely connected with the 
method of the book is its general purport. By turning the mind 
inward upon itself, and " making it its own object," Locke surmises 
that all its ideas come either from without or from experience of 
its own operations. He finds, on examination and analysis, no 
ideas which cannot be referred to one or other of these two sources. 
The single word " experience " includes them both, and furnishes 
us with a good expression for marking the general drift of his phil- 
osophy. It was pre-eminently a philosophy of experience, both in 
its method and in its results. It accepts nothing on authority, no 
foregone conclusions, no data from other sciences. It digs as it 
were, into the mind, detaches the ore, analyses it, and asks how the 
various constituents came there. The analytical and pyschological 
direction thus given to philosophy by Locke was followed by most 
of the philosophical writers of the eighteenth century. However 
divergent in other respects, Hume and Berkleey, Hartley and Reid, 
the French Sensationalists, Kant, all commence their investigations 
by inquiring into the constitution, the capacities, and the limits of 
the Human Mind. Nor can any system of speculation be con- 
structed on a sound basis which has neglected to dig about the 
foundations of human knowledge, to assertain what our thoughts 
can and what they cannot compass, and what are the varying de- 
grees of assurance with which the various classes of propositions 
may be accepted by us. Two cautions, indeed, are necessary in 
applying this procedure. We must never forget that the mind is 
constantly in contact with external nature, and that therefore a 
constant action and reaction is taking place between them : and 
we must never omit to base our inductions on an examination of 
other minds as well as our own, brin^ine into the account, as far 
as possible, every type and grade of mental development. 

It was not, however, only its General spirit and direction which 
Locke impressed on the philosophy of the eighteenth century. He 
may almost be said to have recreated that philosophy. There is 
hardly a single French or English writer (and we may add Kant) 
down to the time of Dugald Stewart, or even of Cousin, Hamilton, 
and J. S. Mill, who does not profess either to develope Locke's sys* 



LOCKE. 99 

tem, or to supplement, or to criticise it. Followers, antagonists, and 
critics alike seem to assume on the part of the reader a knowledge of 
the Essay on the Human Understanding, and to make that the start- 
ing-point of their own speculations. The office which Bacon as- 
signs to himself with reference to knowledge generally might well 
have been claimed by Locke with reference to the science of mind. 
Both of them did far more than merely play the part of a herald, 
but of both alive it was emphaticallv true that they " rang the bell 
to call the other wits together." 



IOO LOCKE. 



CHAPTER IX. 

LOCKE'S OPINIONS ON RELIGION AND MORALS, AND HIS THEO- 
LOGICAL WRITINGS. 

In the Essay o?i the Hu?nan Understanding, Bk. IV., ch. x., 
Locke attempts to prove the existence of a God, which, though 
God has given us no innate idea of Himself, he regards as "the 
most obvious truth that reason discerns/' and as resting on evidence 
equal to mathematical certainty. Morality is, he maintains, entirely 
based upon the Will of God. If there were no God, there would, 
for him, be no morality, and this is the reason of his denying to 
Atheists the protection of the State. In the. chapter on the Exist- 
ence of God he says expressly that this truth is so fundamental 
that " all genuine morality depends thereon," and almost at the 
beginning of the Essay (Bk. I., ch. iii., § 6), while acknowledging 
that "several moral rules may receive from mankind a very general 
approbation, without either knowing or admitting the true ground 
of morality," he maintains that such true ground " can only be the 
Will and Law of a God, who sees men in the dark, has in his hand 
rewards and punishments, and power enough to call to account the 
proudest offender." Again, "the Rule prescribed by God is the 
true and only measure of Virtue." But how are we to ascertain 
this rule ? " God has by an inseparable connexion joined Virtue 
and Public Happiness together," and hence we have only to ascer- 
tain, by the use of the natural reason, what on the whole conduces 
most to the public welfare, in order to know the Divine Will. The 
rules, when arrived at, have a " moral and eternal obligation," and 
are enforced by fear of " the Hell God has ordained for the punish- 
ment of those that transgress them." 

This form of Utilitarianism, resting on a theological basis and 
enforced by theological sanctions, is precisely that which afterwards 
became so popular and excited so much attention, when adopted in 
the well-known work of Paley. According to this system, we do 
what is right simply because God commands it, and because He 
will punish us if we disobey His orders. " By the fault is the rod, 
and with the transgression a fire ready to punish it." But, notwith- 
standing the divine origin and the divine sanction of morality, its 
measure and test are purely human. Each man is required by the 
Law of God to do all the good and prevent all the evil that he can, 
and, as good and evil are resolved into pleasure and pain, the ulti- 
mate test of virtue or moral conduct comes to be its conduciveness 



LOCKE. IO i 

to promote the pleasures and avert the pains of mankind. Ben- 
tham, whose ethical system, it may be noticed, differed mainly from 
that of Locke and Paley by not being based on a theological foun- 
dation, extends the scope of morality to all sentient creatures, 
capable of pleasure and pain. 

I shall not here criticise Locke's theory so far as it is common 
to other utilitarian systems of ethics, but shall simply content my- 
self with pointing out that its influence on subsequent writers has 
seldom, if ever, been sufficiently recognised. The theological 
foundation, however, on which it rests, and which is peculiar among 
the more prominent moralists of modern times to Locke and Paley, 
is open to an objection so grave and obvious, that it is curious it 
did not occur to the authors themselves. If what is right and 
wrong, good and evil, depends solely on the Will of God, how can 
we speak of God Himself as good ? Goodness, as one of the 
Divine attributes, would then simply mean the conformity of God 
to His own Will. An elder contemporary of Locke, Ralph Cud- 
worth, so clearly saw the difficulties and contradictions involved in 
this view of the nature and origin of morality, that he devotes a 
considerable portion of his Treatise concerning Eternal and Im- 
mutable Morality (which, however, was not published till 1731) to 
its refutation. And, possibly, Locke himself may have been con- 
scious of some inconsistency between this theory (the ordinary 
one amongst the vulgar, though a comparatively rare one amongst 
philosophers) and the atttribution of goodness to God. For, in his 
chapter on our knowledge of the existence of God, he never ex- 
pressly mentions the attribute of goodness as pertaining to the 
Divine Nature, though in other parts of the Essay it must be ac- 
knowledged that he incidentally does so. Moralists and philoso- 
phical theologians have generally escaped the difficulties of Locke's 
theory by making right or moral goodness depend not on the Will 
but on the Nature of God, or else by regarding it as an ultimate 
fact, incapable of explanation, or, lastly, by resolving it into the idea 
of happiness or pleasure, which itself is then regarded as an ulti- 
mate fact in the constitution of sentient beings. 

Two other characteristic doctrines of Locke's ethical system 
ought here to be mentioned, though it is impossible, within the 
space at my command, to discuss them. One is that morality is a 
science capable of demonstration. The other, which is elaborately 
set out in the chapter on Power in the Essay (Bk. II., ch. xxi.), is 
that, though the Agent is free to act as he wills, the Will itself is 
invariably determined by motives. This solution of the well-worn 
controversy on the Freedom of the Will is almost identical with 
that offered by Hobbes before and by Hume afterwards, and is 
usually known as Determinism. 

We have seen that the main sanctions of morality, with Locke, 
are the rewards and punishments of a future state. But how are 
we assured of future existence ? Only by Revelation. " Good 
and wise men," indeed, "have always been willing to believe that 
the soul was immortal ; " but " though the Light of Nature gave 



102 



LOCKE. 



some obscure glimmering, some uncertain hopes of a future state, 
yet Human Reason could attain to no clearness, no certainty about 
it, but it was Jesus Christ alone who brought life and immortality 
to light through the gospel." (Third Letter to the Bp. of Wor- 
cester.) But if the main sanctions of morality are those of a future 
state, and if it is Christians alone who feel anything approaching to 
an assurance of such a state, surely morality must come with some- 
what weak credentials to the rest of mankind. And Locke 
doubtless believed this to be the case. But then, if this be so, 
Christians ought to be prepared to tolerate a much lower morality 
than their own in dealing with men of other faiths — one of the 
many inconvenient consequences which result from founding 
morality on a theological basis. 

Under the head of Locke's theological writings maybe included 
the Treatise on the Reasonableness of Christianity with the two 
Vindications of it — the Essays on Toleration, and the Conunen- 
zaries on some of the Epistles of St. Paul. The Reasonableness of 
Christianity was published in 1695, and maybe taken as expressing 
Locke's most matured opinions on the questions of which it treats, 
though, in reading it, we must always bear in mind the caution and 
reticence which any writer of that time who diverged from the strict 
path of orthodoxy was obliged to observe. There can be no doubt 
that his object in this work was to commend what he regarded as 
the fundamental truths of Christianity to the attention of reflecting 
men, and to vindicate to the Christian religion what he conceived to 
be its legitimate influence over mankind. But, in trying to effect 
this his main object, he seems also to have wished to correct what 
he regarded as certain popular errors, and to bring back Christianity 
to the norm of the Scriptures, instead of implicity following the 
Fathers, the Councils, and the received theology of the Church 
and the Schools. He attempted, he tells us, to clear his mind of 
all preconceived notions, and, following the lead of the Scriptures, 
of which he assumed the infallibility, to see whither they would 
lead him. We may certainly trust his own assertion that he had 
no thoughts of writing in the interest of any particular party, 
though, at the same time, it was evidently his aim to extract from 
the Scriptures a theory as much as possible in accordance with the 
requirements of human reason, or, in other words, to reconcile the 
divine light with the natural light of man. The main results at 
which he arrived may be stated very briefly, as follows. Adam had 
been created immortal, but, by falling from the state of perfect 
obedience, " he lost paradise, wherein was tranquillity and the tree 
of life ; that is, he lost bliss and immortality." " In Adam all die," 
and hence all his descendants are mortal. But this sentence is to 
be taken in its literal sense, and not in the signification that " every 
one descended of him deserves endless torment in hell-fire." For 
it seems " a strange way of understanding a law, which requires 
the plainest and directest words, that by death should be meant 
eternal life in misery." Much less can death be interpreted as a 



L0C1TE. 103 

necessity of continual sinning. "Can the righteous_ God be 
snpposed, as a punishment of our sin, wherewith He is displeased, 
to put man under the necessity of sinning continually, and so mul- 
tiplying the provocation? " Here it will be seen Locke strikes at 
the root of the doctrines of the taint and guilt of original sin, doc- 
trines which had long been stoutly opposed by the Arminians or 
Remonstrants with whom he had associated in Holland. But 
though it would have been an injustice to condemn men, for the 
fault of another, to a state of misery " worse than non-being," it 
was no wrong to deprive them of that to which they had no right, 
the exceptional condition of immortality. Adam's sin, then, sub- 
jected all men to death. But in Christ they have again been made 
alive, and "the life which Jesus Christ restores to all men is that 
life which they receive again at the resurrection." Now the con- 
ditions of our obtaining this gift are faith and repentance. But 
repentance implies the doing works meet for repentance ; that is 
to say, leading a good life. And faith implies a belief not only in 
the one invisible, eternal, omnipotent God, but also in Jesus as the 
Messiah, who was born of a virgin, rose again from the grave, and 
ascended into heaven. When Christ came on earth, the minds of 
men had become so far blinded by sense and lust and superstition 
that it required some visible and unmistakable assertion of God's 
majesty and goodness to bring them back to true notions of Him 
and of the Divine Law which He had set them. "Reason, speak- 
ing ever so clearly to the wise and virtuous, had never authority 
enough to prevail on the multitude." For the multitude were 
under the dominion of the priests, and the "priests everywhere, to 
secure their empire, had excluded reason from having anything to 
do in religion." " In this state of darkness and error, in reference 
to the ' true God,' our Saviour found the world. But the clear 
revelation he brought with him dissipated this darkness, made the 
' one invisible true God ' known to the world ; and that with such 
evidence and energy, that polytheism and idolatry have nowhere 
been able to withstand it." And, as he revealed to mankind a 
clear knowledge of the one true God, so also he revealed to them 
a clear knowledge of their duty, which was equally wanting. 

" Natural religion, in its full extent, was nowhere that I know taken 
care of by the force of natural reason. It sould seem, by the little that 
has hitherto been done in it, that it is too hard a task for unassisted reason 
to establish morality in all its parts, upon its true foundation, with a clear 
and convincing light. And it is at least a surer and shorter way to the 
apprehensions of the vulgar and mass of mankind, that one manifestly 
sent from God, and coming with visible authority from him, should, as a 
king and law-maker, tell them their duties and require their obedience, 
than leave it to the long and sometimes intricate deductions of reason to 
be made out to them. Such trains of reasoning the greater part of 
mankind have neither leisure to weigh, nor, for want of education and use, 
skill to judge of . . . You may as soon hope to have all the day-labourers 
and tradesmen, the spinsters and dairy-maids, perfect mathematicians, as 
to have them perfect in ethics this way. Hearing plain commands is the 



io4 



LOCKE. 



sure and only course to bring them to obedience and practice. The 
greater part cannot learn, and therefore they must believe." 

It is true that reason quickly apprehends and approves of these 
truths, when once delivered, but " native and original truth is not 
so easily wrought out of the mine as we, who have it delivered 
already dug and fashioned into our hands, are apt to imagine ; " 
moreover, " experience shows that the knowledge of morality by 
mere natural light (how agreeable soever it be to it) makes but a 
slow progress, and little advance in the world." 

The evidence of Christ's mission is to be found in the miracles, 
the occurrence and the divine origin of which Locke, both here 
and in the paper on Miracles published among his Posthumous 
Works, appears to have thought it impossible to gainsay. " The 
miracles he did were so ordered by the divine providence and wis- 
dom, that they never were nor could be denied by any of the ene- 
mies or opposers of Christianity." And " this plain matter of fact 
being granted, the truth of our Saviour's doctrine and mission una- 
voidably follows." But once acknowledge the truth of Christ's 
mission, and the rule of life is evident. " To one who is once per- 
suaded that Jesus Christ was sent by God to be a King, and a 
Saviour of those who do believe in him, all his commands become 
principles; there needs no other proof for the truth of what he 
says, but that he said it. And then there needs no more, but to 
read the inspired books, to be instructed ; all the duties of morality 
lie there clear, and plain, and easy to be understood." 

This, then, is Locke's scheme of a plain and reasonable Chris- 
tianity. " These are articles that the labouring and illiterate man 
may comprehend. This is a religion suited to vulgar capacities, 
and the state of mankind in this world, destined to labour and tra- 
vail." "The writers and wranglers in religion," indeed, "fill it 
with niceties, and dress it up with notions, which they make neces- 
sary and fundamental parts of it, as if there were no way into the 
church but through the academy or lyceum ; " but the religion which 
he had enunciated was, Locke conceived, the religion of Christ and 
the Apostles, of the New Testament and of Common-Sense. 

That Locke, though he had no respect for the dogmas of the 
Church, never seriously questioned the supernatural birth of Christ, 
the reality of the Christian miracles, or the infallibility of the Scrip- 
tures, is abundantly evident. On the last point his testimony is 
quite as emphatic as on the former two. In the Reasonableness of 
Christianity, speaking of the writers of the Epistles, he says : — 
" These holy writers, inspired from above, writ nothing but truth." 
And to the same effect, in his Second Reply to Stillingfleet, he 
writes : — " My lord, I read the revelation of the holy scripture with 
a full assurance that all it delivers is true." The word " infallible " 
is applied, without any misgivings or qualification, to the contents 
of Scripture, though he assumes to each individual believer full 
liberty of interpretation. During his residence in Holland, as we 
have already seen, he appears to have entertained some doubts on 



LOCKE. 



105 



this subject, but, at a later period, those doubts appear to have 
been finally laid. 

Notwithstanding, however, the sincerity and simplicity of 
Locke's religious faith, the doctrines which he maintained must 
have represented but a very attenuated Christianity to the partisans 
of the two great religious parties which were at that time nominally 
the strongest in England. A Christianity which did not recognise 
the hereditary taint of original sin, and which passed over the mys- 
tery of the Atonement in silence, must have been as distasteful to 
one party as a Christianity which ignored Church authority and the 
exclusive privileges of the apostolical succession must have been 
to the other. And to the zealots of both parties alike, a statement 
of doctrine which was silent on the mystery of the Trinity, or rather 
which seemed to imp'ythat the Son, though miraculously conceived, 
was not co-equal or co-eternal with the Father, and which, by im- 
plication, appeared to suggest that, though the righteous would be 
endowed with immortality, the torments of the wicked would have 
an end, might well seem not to deserve the name of Christianity at 
all We need feel no wonder, then, that the appearance of Locke's 
work was followed by a bitter theological controversy which lasted 
during the rest of his life, and beyond it. Of these attacks upon 
him, and his Vindications, I have spoken in a previous chapter. 

Whether Locke's presentation of Christianity is really more 
" reasonable " than the ancient and venerable creeds which it at- 
tempted to replace, is a question which might be debated now with 
fully as much vigour as in his own day. On the one hand, it might 
be maintained that a religion which has no mysteries, which has 
been pared down to the requirements of human reason, has ceased 
to be a religion altogether. That which is behind the veil can only 
be partially revealed in our present condition and to our present 
faculties. 'Now we know, and can know, only in part. On the 
other hand, it might be said that the " reason " is quite as much 
offended by the doctrines which Locke retained as by those he re- 
jected. It is necessary, however, to recollect, in estimating his 
position, that the theological difficulties of his age were moral and 
metaphysical rather than scientific and critical. The moral con- 
sciousness of many reflecting men was shocked by doctrines like 
those of original sin, predestination, the atonement, and everlasting 
punishment. Nor could they reconcile to their reason the seeming 
contradictions of the doctrine of a Triune God. But the study of 
nature had not advanced sufficiently far, or been sufficiently widely 
spread, to make the idea of supernatural intervention in the ordi- 
nary course of affairs, such as is constantly presented to us in the 
Biblical history, any serious or general stumbling-block. Much 
less had the criticism of the Sacred Text, or the comparison of it 
with the sacred books of other religions, become sufficiently com- 
mon, or been carried out with sufficient rigour, to "disturb, to any 
great extent, the received opinion that the Bible was literally, 
or, at least, substantially, the Word of God. Hence the via media 
on which Locke took his stand, though it might have been impos- 



I0 6 LOCKE. 

sible to a philosopher of the next generation, seemed reasonable 
and natural enough to speculative men among his contemporaries. 
And for him it had at least this advantage, that it enabled him hon- 
estly to reconcile the conclusions of his philosophy with the singu- 
lar piety and devoutness of his disposition. Had his religious 
doubts proceeded further than they did, there would probably have 
ensued a mental struggle which, besides causing him much per- 
sonal unhappiness, might have deprived posterity of the more im- 
portant of his works. 

Of The Letters on Toleration, though deeply interesting to the 
generation in which they were written, a very brief account will 
here suffice. Their main thesis is, that the jurisdiction of the civil 
magistrate does not extend to the regulation of religious worship 
or to the controlling of religious beliefs, except so far as that wor- 
ship or those beliefs may interfere with the ends of civil government. 
The respective provinces of a commonwealth and a church are 
strictly defined, and are shown to be perfectly distinct. " The 
boundaries on both sides are fixed and immovable. He jumbles 
heaven and earth together, the things most remote and opposite, 
who mixes these societies, which are in their original, end, business, 
and in everything, perfectly distinct and infinitely different from 
each other." But it may be asked, are there no speculative opin- 
ions, no tenets, actual or possible, of any religious community which 
should be restrained by the Civil Magistrate ? The answer is, 
yes,— 

" First, No opinions contrary to human society, or to those moral 
rules which are necessary to the preservation of civil society, are to be 
tolerated by the magistrate." 

Secondly, after speaking of those who maintain such positions 
as that " faith is not to be kept with heretics," that " kings excom- 
municated forfeit their crowns and kingdoms," that " dominion is 
founded in grace,'' he proceeds : 

" These, therefore, and the like, who attribute unto the faithful, reli- 
gious, and orthodox, that is, in plain terms, unto themselves, any peculiar 
privilege or power above other mortals in civil concernments, or who, 
upon pretence of religion, do challenge any manner of authority over such 
as are not associated with them in their ecclesiastical communion : J. say 
these have no right to be tolerated by the magistrate, as neither those 
that will not own and teach the duty of tolerating all men in matters of 
mere religion. For what do all these and the like doctrines signify, but 
that they may, and are ready upon any occasion to seize the government, 
and possess themselves of the estates and fortunes of their fellow-subjects, 
and that they only ask leave to be tolerated by the magistrates so long 
until they find themselves strong enough to effect it?" 

" Thirdly, That church can have no right to be tolerated by the magis- 
trate, which is constituted upon such a bottom that all those who enter 
upon it do thereby ipso facto deliver themselves up to the protection and 
service of another prince. For by this means the magistrate would give 



LOCKE. 107 

way to the settling of a foreign jurisdiction in his own country, and suffer 
his own people to be listed, as it were, for soldiers against his own govern- 
ment." 

" Lastlv, Those are not at all to be tolerated who deny the being of 
God. Promises, covenants, and oaths, which are the bonds of human 
society, can have no hold upon an atheist. The taking away of God, 
though but even in thought, dissolves all." 

The practical result of Locke's exceptions, at the time at which 
he wrote, would have been to exclude from toleration Roman 
Catholics, Atheists, and perhaps certain sects of Antinomians. 
Roman Catholics, however, would not have been excluded on the 
ground of their belief in Transubstantiation, as was actually the case, 
but because of those tenets which, in Locke's judgment, make them 
bad or impossible subjects. . 

Locke was not by any means the first of English writers who 
had advocated a wide toleration in religion. Bacon, in his remark- 
able Essay on Unity in Religion, had laid down, in passing, a 
position which is almost identical with what developed at length in 
the Letters on Toleration. During the Civil Wars, the Independ- 
ents, as a body, had been led on by their theories of Church 
Government and of individual inspiration to maintain, on principle, 
and accord, in practice, a large measure of religious toleration. 
Amongst divines of the Church of England, Hales of Eton, Chil- 
lingworth, and Jeremy Taylor, had honourably distinguished them- 
selves above the mass of "their brethren by expressly advocating, 
or unmistakably suggesting, the same humane doctrines. The 
practical conclusions at which Taylor arrives, in his noble work on 
the Liberty of Prophesying, bear a close resemblance to those of 
Locke's Letters on Toleration, while the theoretical considerations 
on which he mainly founds them, namely, the difficulty of discover- 
ing religious truth, and the small number of theological propositions 
of which we can entertain anything like certainty, might be regarded 
as anticipating, to no small extent, some of the views expressed in 
the Reasonableness of Christianity. Locke's attention had been 
turned to these questions at an early period of his life by the re- 
ligious dissensions which accompanied the Civil Wars, and during 
the years immediately preceding the publication of the first Letter 
on Toleration, his interest in them must have been sustained not 
only by the events which were then happening in England, but by 
the common topics of conversation amongst his Arminian or Re- 
monstrant friends in Holland. The peculiarities of their position 
and the tendencies of their doctrines had, at an early date, forced 
on the Dutch Remonstrants, just as on the English Independents, 
the necessity of claiming and defending a wide toleration. What, 
perhaps, mainly distinguishes Locke's pamphlets is their thorough 
outspokenness, the political rather than the theological character 
of the argument, and the fact that they are expressly dedicated to 
the subjects of Toleration, instead of treating of it incidentally. 

The sharp line of demarcation which Locke draws between the 
respective provinces of civil and religious communities seems to 



Io8 LOCKE. 

lead logically to the inexpediency of maintaining a state establish- 
ment of religion. The independence which he claims for all religious 
societies would be inconsistent with the control which the State 
always has exercised, and always must exercise, in the affairs of 
any spiritual body on which it confers special privileges. This 
conclusion, we can hardly doubt, he would have readily accepted. 
As far back as 1669, he had objected to one of the articles in the 
" Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina," providing for the 
establishment and endowment of the Church of England in that 
colony. Even at the present day, men who adopt the most liberal 
and tolerant opinions on religious questions are divided as to the 
expediency or inexpediency of recognising a State-Church ; but 
those who embrace the latter alternative may, perhaps, fairly claim 
Locke as having been on their side. 

The system contained in the Reasonableness of Christiatiity had 
been constructed solely on an examination of the Gospels and the 
Acts of the Apostles. In addition to the difficulties of interpreta- 
tion attaching to the Epistles, Locke had urged that " they were 
writ to them who were in the faith and true Christians already, and 
so could not be designed to teach them the fundamental articles 
and points necessary to salvation." But to one who accepted the 
divine inspiration and infallibility of all parts of Scripture, it was 
essential to establish the consistency and coherence of the whole. 
Accordingly, in the later years of his life, Locke set himself the task 
of explaining the Epistles. This work seems to have been under- 
taken more for his own satisfaction and that of Lady Masham and 
his more immediate friends, than with any distinct design of publica- 
tion. Nor did his commentaries see the light till after his death. 

The commentatorial work accomplished by Locke consists of 
paraphrases and notes on the Epistles to the Galatians, Corinthians, 
Romans, and Ephesians, together with An Essay for the under- 
standing of St. Paul's Epistles by consulting St. Paul hi?nself 

It is needless to remark that these commentaries are dis- 
tinguished by sound, clear sense, and by a manifest spirit of candour 
and fairness. They are often quoted with approbation by com- 
mentators of the last century. But in the present more advanced 
state of grammatical and historical criticism, they are likely to 
remain, as they now are, the least consulted of all his works. 

The method, object, and drift of all Locke's theological writ- 
ings is the same- Regardless of ecclesiastical tradition, but as- 
suming the infallibility of the Scriptures, he attempts to arrive at 
the true and essential import of God's Revelation to man. His 
theoretical conclusion is that the articles of saving faith are few 
and simple, and the practical application of that conclusion is that, 
not only within the ample fold of Christianity, but even without it, 
all men, whose conduct is consistent with the maintenance of civiJ 
society, should be the objects of our good-will and charity. 



LOCKE. sog 



CHAPTER X. 

THE THOUGHTS ON EDUCATION AND THE CONDUCT OF THE 
UNDERSTANDING. 

Locke's tractate on Education, though some of the maxims 
are reiterated with needless prolixity, abounds in shrewdness and 
common-sense. Taking as the object of education the production 
of "a sound mind in a sound body," he begins with the "case." 
the " clay-cottage," and considers first the health of the body. Of 
the diet prescribed, dry bread and small beer form a large propor- 
tion. Locke is a great believer in the virtues of cold water. Cod- 
dling, in all its forms, was to be repressed with a strong hand. 
My young master was to be much in the open air, he was to play 
in the wind and the sun without a hat, his clothes were not to be 
too warm, and his bed was to be hard and made in different fash- 
ions, that he might not in after-life feel every little change, when 
there was no maid " to lay all things in print, and tuck him in 
warm." 

In the cultivation of the mind, far more importance is attached 
to the formation of virtuous habits, and even of these social quali- 
ties which go by the name of "good breeding," than to the mere 
inculcation of knowledge. " I place Virtue as the first and most 
necessary of those endowments that belong to a Man or a Gentle- 
man ; as absolutely requisite to make him valued and beloved by 
others, acceptable or tolerable to himself." Wisdom, that is to 
say, " a man's managing his business ably, and with foresight, in 
this world," comes next in order. In the third place is Good 
Breeding, the breaches of which maybe all avoided by " observing 
this one rule, Not to think meanly of ourselves, and not to think 
meanly of others." Learning, though " this may seem strange in 
the mouth of a bookish man," he puts last. " When I consider 
what ado is made about a little Latin and Greek, how many years 
are spent in it, and what a noise and business it makes to no pur- 
pose, I can hardly forbear thinking that the parents of children 
still live in fear of the Schoolmaster's Rod." "Seek out some- 
body that may know how discreetly to frame your child's manners : 
place him in hands where you may, as much as possible, secure his 
innocence, cherish and nurse up the good, and gently correct and 
weed out any bad inclinations, and settle in him good habits. 
This is the main point, and, this being provided for, Learning may 

" (a very common de- 



IIO LOCKE. 

lusion among the educational reformers of Locke's time), "at a 
very easy rate, by methods that may be thought on." 

These being Locke's ideas as to the relative value of the ob- 
jects to be aimed at in education, we need feel little surprise at the 
disfavour with which he viewed the system of the English Public 
Schools. 

"Till you can find a School wherein it is possible for the Master to 
look after the manners of his scholars, and can show as great efforts of 
his care of forming their minds to virtue and their carriage to good breed- 
ing as of forming their tongues to the learned languages, you must con- 
fess that you have a strange value for words when, preferring the lan- 
guages of the ancient Greeks and Romans to that which made 'em such 
brave men, you think it worth while to hazard your son's innocence and 
virtue for a little Greek and Latin. How any one's being put into a mixed 
herd of unruly boys, and there learning to wrangle at Trap or rook at 
Span-Farthing fits him for civil conversation or business, I do not see. 
And what qualities are ordinarily to be got from such a troop of Play-fel- 
lows as Schools usually assemble together from parents of all kinds, that 
a father should so much covet, is hard to divine. I am sure he who is 
able to be at the charge of a Tutor at home may there give his son a more 
genteel carriage, more manly thoughts, and a sense of what is worthy and 
becoming, with a greater proficiency in Learning into the bargain, and 
ripen him up sooner into a man, than any School can do." 

The battle of private and public education has been waged 
more or less fiercely ever since Locke's time, as it was waged long 
before, and, although it has now been generally decided in favour 
of the Schools, many of his arguments have even yet not lost theii 
force. 

Not only in the interest of morality, character, and manners 
did Locke disapprove the Public School system of his day. He 
also thought it essentially defective in its subjects and modes 
of instruction. The subjects taught were almost exclusively the 
Latin and Greek languages, though at Locke's own school of 
Westminster the upper forms were also initiated into Hebrew and 
Arabic. This linguistic training, though of course it included 
translations from the classical authors, was to a large extent car- 
ried on by means of verse-making, theme-making, repetition, and 
grammar lessons. Against all these modes of teaching Locke is 
peculiarly severe. Grammar, indeed, he would have taught, but 
not till the pupil is sufficiently conversant with the language to be 
able to speak it with tolerable fluency. Its proper place is as an 
introduction to Rhetoric. " I know not why any one should waste 
his time and beat his head about the Latin Grammar, who does 
not intend to be a critic, or make speeches and write despatches in 
it. . . . If his use of it be only to understand some books writ in 
it, without a critical knowledge of the tongue itself, reading alone 
will attain this end, without charging the mind with the multiplied 
rules and intricacies of Grammar." But without a knowledge of 
some rules of grammar, which need not, however, be taught in an 
abstract and separate form, but may be learnt gradually in the 



LOCKE. x x T 

course of reading, writing, and speaking, how would it be possible 
to attain to any precise understanding of the authors react? The 
fault of the old system, which even st.ll lingers on in school in- 
struction, consisted not so much in teaching grammatical rules, as 
in teaching them apart from the writings which exemplify them, 
and which alone can render them intelligible or interesting to a 
beginner. 

The practice cf filling up a large part of a boy's time with mak- 
ing Latin themes and verses meets with still more scathing censure 
than that of initiating him into the learned languages by means of 
abstract rules of grammar, and we may well imagine the cordial 
assent with which many of Locke's readers, smarting under a 
sense of the time they had in this way lost at school, would receive 
his criticisms. 

" For do but consider what it is in making a Theme that a young lad 
is employed about ; it is to make a speech on some Latin saying, as Ovinia 
vincit amor, or Non licet in bello bis peccare, &c. And here the poor lad, 
who wants knowledge of those things he is to speak of, which is to be had 
only from time and observation, must set his invention on the rack to say 
something where he knows nothing ; which is a sort of Egyptian tyranny 
to bid them make bricks who have not yet any of the materials. ... In 
the next place consider the Language that their Themes are made in. 'Tis 
Latin, a language foreign in their country, and long since dead everywhere : 
a language which your son, 'tis a thousand to one, shall never have an oc- 
casion once to make a speech in as long as he lives after he comes to be 
a man ; and a language wherein the manner of expressing one's self is so 
far different from ours that to be perfect in that would very little improve 
the purity and facility of his English style." 

" If these may be any reasons against children's making Latin Themes 
at school, I have much more to say, and of more weight, against their mak- 
ing verses ; verses of any sort. For if he has no genius to poetry, 'tis the 
most unreasonable thing in the world to torment a child and waste his 
time about that which can never succeed ; and if he have a poetic vein, 
'tis to me the strangest thing in the world that the father should desire or 
suffer it to be cherished or improved. Methinks the parents should labour 
to have it stifled and suppressed as much as maybe; and I know not 
what reason a father can have to wish his son a poet, who does not desire 
to have him bid defiance to all other callings and business. Which is not 
yet the worst of the case ; for if he proves a successful rhymer, and get 
once the reputation of a Wit, I desire it may be considered what company 
and places he is likely to spend his time in, nay, and estate too. For it is 
very seldom seen that any one discovers mines of gold or silver in Parnas- 
sus. 'Tis a pleasant air, but a barren soil ; and there are very few in- 
stances of those who have added to their patrimony by anything they have 
reaped from thence. Poetry and Gaming, which usually go together, are 
alike in this too, that they seldom bring any advantage but to those who 
have nothing else to live on." 

Repetition, as it is called, or " learning by heart great parcels 
of the authors which are taught," is unreservedly condemned as 
being of "no use at all, uuless it be to baulk young lads in the was 
to learning languages, which, in my opinion, should be made as 



II2 LOCKE. 

easy and pleasant as may be." " Languages are to be learned only 
by reading and talking, and not by scraps of authors got by heart; 
which when a man's head is stuffed with, he has got the just furni- 
ture of a pedant, than which there is nothing less becoming a gen- 
tleman." This unqualified condemnation of the practice of com- 
mitting to memory the choicer pieces of classical authors, whether 
in the ancient or modern languages, would hardly be adopted by 
th? c ducational reformers of our own day. To tax the memory of 
a child cr a boy with long strings of words, ill understood or not 
understood at all, is about as cruel and senseless a practice as can 
well be conceived. It is one of the strange devices, invented by 
perverse pedagogues and tolerated by ignorant parents, through 
which literature and all that is connected with books has been 
made so repulsive to many generations of young Englishmen. But 
if the tastes and interests' of the pupil skilfully consulted, and the 
understanding is called into action as well as the memory, a store 
of well-selected passages learnt by rote wilt not only do much to 
familiarize him with the genius of the language, but will also supply 
constant solace and occupation in those moments of depression 
and vacuity which are only too sure to occur in every man's life. 

Locke, like Milton (see Milton's Pamphlet on Education ad- 
dressed to Master Samuel Hartlib, and cp. Pattison's Life of Mil- 
ton, published in this series, pp. 42-46), had embraced the new 
gospel of education according to Comenius, and supposed that, by 
new methods, not only might the road to knowledge be rendered 
very short and easy, but almost all the subjects worth learning 
might be taught in the few years spent at School and College. 
The whole of Milton's ' ; complete and generous education " was to 
be " done between twelve and one-and-twenty." And similarly 
Locke thinks that " at the same time that a child is learning French 
and Latin, he may also be entered in Arithmetic, Geography, Chron- 
ology, History, and Geometry too. For if these be taught him in 
French or Latin, when he begins once to understand either of these 
tongues, he will get a knowledge in these sciences and the lan- 
guage to boot." To these subjects are afterwards added Astron- 
omy, Ethics, Civil and Common Law, Natural Philosophy, and al- 
most all the then known branches of human knowledge, though, 
curiously enough, Greek is omitted as not being, like Latin and 
French, essential to the education of a gentleman, and being, more- 
over, easy of acquisition, "if he has a mind to carry his studies 
farther," is after-life. Concurrently with these intellectual pursuits, 
the model young gentleman is to graduate in dancing, fencing, 
wrestling, riding, besides (and on this addition to his accomplish- 
ment the utmost stress is laid) "learning a trade, a manual trade, 
nay, two or three, but one more particularly." And all this pro- 
gramme apparently was to be filled up before the age of one-and- 
twenty, for at that time Locke assumes that, notwithstanding ail 
reason and remonstrances to the contrary, my young master's pa- 
rents will insist on marrying him, and "the young gentleman being 
got within view of matrimony, 'tis time to leave him to his mistress." 



• OCA'S. 



Il 3 



This idea of an education embracing the whole field of human 
knowledge and accomplishments is a vision so attractive, that it 
would be strange indeed if it did not from lime to time present ii- 
self to the enthusiast and the reformer. But wherever the experi- 
ment has been tried on boys and youths of average ability, the 
vision has invariably been dissipated. And, as the circle of human 
knowledge is constantly widening, whereas the capacity to learn 
remains much the same from generation to generation, the failure 
is inevitable. 

Any account of Locke's views on Education, however meagre, 
would be very imperfect, if it neglected to notice the motives to 
obedience and proficiency which he proposed to substitute for what 
was then too often the one and only motive on which the School- 
master relied, fear of the rod. Corporal chastisement should be 
reserved, he thought, for the offence of wilful and obstinate diso- 
bedience. In all other cases, appeal should be made to the pupil's 
natural desire of employment and knowledge, to example acting 
through his propensity to imitation, to reasoning, to the sense of 
shame and the love of commendation and reputation. Many of 
Locke's suggestions for bringing these motives effectually to bear 
are very ingenious, and the whole of this part of the discussion is 
as creditable to his humanity as to his knowledge of human nature. 

There is a large literature on the theory of education, from the 
Book of Proverbs and the Republic of Plato downwards. It is no 
part of my task even to mention the principal writers in this field. 
But, besides some of the works of Comenius, the Essay of Mon- 
taigne De V institution des infants., and the tractate of Milton already 
referred to, we may almost take for granted that Locke had read 
the Schoolmaster of Roger Ascham. This author, who was in- 
structor to Queen Elizabeth, is already sufficiently independent of 
scholastic traditions to think that "children are sooner allured by 
love, than driven by beating, to attain good learning," and to sug- 
gest that " there is no such whetstone to sharpen a good wit, and 
encourage a will to learning, as is praise." He protests almost as 
strongly as Locke againt the senseless mode, then and long after- 
wards prevalent, of teaching gramma'r merelv by means of abstract 
rules, and proposes, as in part substitute, the method of double 
translation, that is, of translating from the foreign or dead language 
into English, and then back again. Of the many works on educa- 
tion subsequent to Locke's, the most famous is, undoubtedly, the 
Emile of Rousseau. On Rousseau's theories there can be no 
question that Locke, mediately or immediately, exercised consider- 
able _ influence, though the range of speculation covered in the 
Entile far exceeds that of the Thoughts concerning Education. Of 
the points common to the two writers, I may specify the extension 
of the term " education " to the regulations of the nursery, the 
substitution of an appeal to the tender and the social affections for 
the harsh discipline mostly in vogue among our ancestors, the 
stress laid on the importance of example and habituation in place 
of the mere inculcation of rules, and, as a point of detail, the de- 



114 LOCKE. 

sirableness of learning one or more manual trades. One circum- 
stance, however, as Mr. Morley has pointed out, distinguishes the 
Emile irom all the works on education which preceded it. Its 
scope is not confined to the children of well-to-do people, and hence 
its object is to produce, not the scholar and the gentleman, but the 
man._ The democratic extension thus given to educational theories 
has since borne fruit in many schemes designed for general appli- 
cability, or, specifically, for the education of the poor, such as those 
of Basedow, Pestalozzi, and, among our own countrymen, Dr. Bell. 

In connexion with the Thoughts on Education, it may be con- 
venient to notice the short treatise on the Conduct of the Under- 
standing. It is true that it was designed as an additional chapter 
to the Essay, but the main theme of which it treats is connected 
rather with the work of self-education than with the analysis of 
knowledge, or the classification of the faculties. This admirable 
little volume, which may be read through in three or four hours, 
appears to have been intended by Locke as at least a partial sub- 
titute for the ordinary logic. As in matters of conduct, so in the 
things of the intellect, he thought little of rules. It was only by 
practice and habituation that men could become either virtuous or 
wise. But, though it is perfectly true that rules are of little use 
without practice, it is not easy to see how habit can be successfully 
initiated or fostered without the assistance of rules ; and inadequate 
as were the rules of the old scholastic logic to remedy the "natural 
defects in the understanding," they required rather to be supple- 
mented than replaced. The views of Bacon on this subject, much 
as they have been misunderstood, are juster than those of Locke. 

Right reasoning, Locke thought (and this is nearly the whole 
truth, though not altogether so), is to be gained from studying good 
models of it. In the Thoughts on Education, he says, " If you 
would have your son reason well, let him read Chillingworth." In 
this treatise, with the same view he commends the study of 
Mathematics, "Not that I think it necessary that all men should 
be deep mathematicians, but that, having got the way of reasoning 
which that study necessarily brings the mind to, they might be able 
to transfer it to other parts of knowledge, as they shall have oc- 
casion." The great difference to be observed in demonstrative 
and in probable reasoning is that, in the former, one train of 
reasoning, "bringing the mind to the source on which it bottoms," 
is sufficient, whereas " in probabilities it is not enough to trace one 
argument to its source, and observe its strength and weakness, but 
all the arguments, after having been so examined on both sides, 
must be laid in balance one against another, and, upon the whole, 
the understanding determine its assent." 

The great defect of this tractate (but its brevity makes the de- 
fect of less importance) is its singular want of method. In fact, it 
appears never to have undergone revision. The author seems to 
throw together his remarks and precepts without any attempt at 
order, and he never misses any opportunity of repeating his attacks 



LOCKE. 



l 5 



on what he evidently regarded as being, in his own time, the main 
hindrances to the acquisition of a sound understanding — prejudice 
and pedantry. But in justness of observation, incisiveness of 
language, and profound acquaintance with the workings of the 
human mind, there are many passages which will bear comparison 
with anything he has written. Specially worthy of notice is the 
homely and forcible character of many of his expressions, as when 
he speaks of a " large, sound, roundabout sense," of " men without 
any industry or acquisition of their own, inheriting local truths," 
of great readers " making their understanding only the warehouse 
of other men's lumber," of the ruling passion entering the mind, 
like "the sheriff of the place, with all the posse, as if it had a legal 
right to be alone considered there." 

Except for the inveterate and growing custom of confining 
works employed in education to such as can be easily lectured on 
and easily examined in, it is difficult to understand why this "stu- 
dent's guide," so brief, and abounding in such valuable cautions 
and suggestions, should have so nearly fallen into desuetude." 



lid LOCKE. 



CHAPTER XI. 

WORKS ON GOVERNMENT, TRADE, AND FINANCE. 

Locke's two Treatises of Gov eminent (published in 1690) carry 
us back into the region of worn-out controversies. The troublous 
times which intervened between the outbreak of the Civil War and 
the Revolution of 1688, including some years on either side, natur- 
ally called forth a large amount of controversy and controversial 
literature on the rights of kings and subjects, on the origin of gov- 
ernment, on the point at which, if any, rebellion is justifiable, and 
other kindred topics. Not only did the press teem with pamphlets 
on these subjects, but, for three-quarters of a century, they were 
constantly being discussed and re-discussed with a dreary monot- 
ony in Parliament, in the pulpits, in the courts of law, and in the 
intercourse of private society. It is no part of my plan to give any 
account of these disputes, except so far as they bear immediately 
on the publication of Locke's treatises. It is enough, therefore, to 
state that the despotic and absolutist side in the controversy had 
been, or was supposed to have been, considerably re-inforced by 
the appearance in 1680 of a posthumous work, which had been 
'circulated only in manuscript during its author's lifetime, entitled 
Patriarcha, or the Natural Power of Kings, by Sir Robert Filmer. 
This curious book (a more correct edition of which was published 
by Edmund Bohun in 1685) grounds the rights of kings on the 
patriarchal authority of Adam and his successors. Adam had 
received directly from God (such was the theory) absolute domin- 
ion over Eve and all his children and their posterity, to the most 
remote generations. This dominion, which rested on two inde- 
pendent grounds, paternity and right of property, was transmitted 
by Adam to his heirs, and is at once the justification of the various 
sovereignties now exercised by kings over their subjects, and a 
reason against any limitation of their authority or any questioning 
of their titles. By what ingenious contrivance the two links of the 
chain — Adam and the several monarchs now actually reigning on 
the earth — are brought together, those curious in such speculations 
may find by duly consulting the pages of Sir Robert Filmer's work. 

Such a tissue of contradictions, assumptions, and absurdities as 
is presented by this book (which, however, contains one grain of 
truth, namely, that all political power has, historically, its ultimate 



LOCKE. 



n 7 



origin in the dominion exercised by the head of the family or tribe) 
might have been left, one would think, without any serious answer. 
But we must recollect that at that time theological arguments were 
introduced into all the provinces of thought, and that any reason, 
which by any supposition could be connected with the authority of 
Scripture, was certain to exercise considerable influence over a 
vast number of minds. Any way, the book was celebrated and 
influential enough to merit, in Locke's judgment, a detailed answer. 
This answer was given in due form, step by step, in the former of 
Locke's two Treatises, which appears to have been written between 
1680 and 1685, as the Edition of the Patriarcha quoted is invariably 
that of 1680. I do not propose to follow him through his various 
arguments and criticisms, many of which, as will readily be sup- 
posed, are acute and sagacious enough. Most modern readers will 
be of opinion that one of his questions might alone have sufficed to 
spare him any further concern, namely, Where is Adam's heir now 
to be found? If he could be shown, and his title indubitably 
proved, the subsequent question of his rights and prerogatives 
might then, perhaps, be profitably discussed. 

Of incomparably more importance and interest than the former 
treatise is the latter, in which Locke sets forth his own theory con- 
cerning "the true original, extent, and end of Civil Government." 
Mr. Fox-Bourne is probably correct in referring the date of the 
composition of this treatise to the time immediately preceding and 
concurrent with the English Revolution, that is to say, to the clos- 
ing period of Locke's stay in Holland. The word, especially in the 
later chapters, bears the marks of passion, as if written in the midst 
of a great political struggle, and, in the Preface to the two Treatises, 
it is distinctly stated to be the author's object " to establish the 
throne of our great restorer, our present King William, and to jus- 
tify to the world the people of England, whose love of their just and 
natural rights saved the nation when it was on the very brink of 
slavery and riiin." 

The theories advanced by Locke on the origin and nature of 
civil society have much in common with those of Puffendorf and 
Hooker, the latter of whom is constantly quoted in the foot-notes. 
After some preliminary speculations on the '• state of nature," he 
determines that Political Society originates solely in the individual 
consents of those who constitute it. This consent, however, may 
be signified either expressly or tacitly, and the tacit consent " reaches 
as far as the very being of any one within the territories of that 
government.'-' 

Though no man need enter apolitical society against his will, yet 
when, by consent given either expressly or tacitly, he has entered it, 
he must submit to the form of government established by the ma- 
jority. There is, however, one form of government which it is not 
. competent even to the majority to establish, and that is Absolute 
Monarchy, this being " inconsistent with civil society, and so being 
no form of government at all." Locke ridicules the idea that men 
would ever voluntarily have erected over themselves such an au- 



nS LOCKE. 

thority, "as if, when men quitting the state of nature entered into 
society, they agreed that all of them but one should be under the 
restraint of laws, but that he should still retain all the liberty of the 
state of nature, increased with power and made licentious by im- 
punity. This is to think that men are so foolish, that they take 
care to avoid what mischiefs may be done them by pole-cats or 
foxes, but are content, nay, think it safety, to be devoured by lions." 
In these and some of the following strictures, he seems to have in 
view not only the ruder theories of Filmer and the absolutist di- 
vines, but also the more philosophical system of Hobbes. 

But, supposing a government other than an Absolute Monarchy 
to have been established, are there any acts or omissions by which 
it can forfeit the allegiance of its subjects ? To answer this ques 
tion, we must look to the ends of political society and government. 
Now the great and chief end which men propose to themselves, 
when they unite into commonwealths, is " the mutual preservation 
of their lives, liberties, and estates, which I call by the general 
name, property." A government, therefore, which neglects to 
secure this end, and still more a government which itself invades 
the rights of its subjects, is guilty of a breach of trust, and conse- 
quently may be lawfully set aside, whenever an opportunity occurs. 
Hence the community itself must always be regarded as the supreme 
authority, in abeyance, indeed, while its fiduciary properly and 
faithfully executes the powers entrusted to him, but ever ready to 
intervene when he misuses or betrays the trust reposed in him. 

On such a theory, it may be objected, of the relations of the 
people to the government, what is to prevent incessant disturbance 
and repeated revolutions ? Locke relies on the inertia of mankind. 
Moreover, as he says, with considerable truth, in a previous passage- 
whatever theories may be propounded, or whatever traditions may 
have been handed down, as the origin, nature, and extent of govern- 
ment, a people, which knows itself to be rendered miserable by the 
faults of its rulers and which sees any chance of bettering its con- 
ditions, will not be deterred from attempting to throw off a yoke 
which has become intolerable. " When the people are made mis- 
erable, and find themselves exposed to the ill-usage of arbitrary 
power, cry up their governors, as much as you will, for sons of Jupi- 
tor; let them be sacred and divine, descended or authorized from 
heaven ; give them out for whom or what you please, the same will 
happen. The people generally ill-treated, and contrary to right, 
will be ready upon any occasion to ease themselves of a burden that 
sits heavy upon them." 

But, though there is much truth in this last remark, there can 
be little question that absolutist theories of government, especially 
when clothed with a religious sanction which appeals to the beliefs 
of the people at large, have much influence in protecting the person 
of an absolute ruler, as well as in ensuring the execution of his 
orders ; while, on the other hand, theories like those of Locke have 
a tendency to encourage criticism, and to weaken many of the 
motives which have usually prevented men from offering resistance 



LOCKE. 



119 



to the established government. The practical consequences of 
Locke s meories, as reproduced and improved on by later writers, 
would probably be found, if we could trace them, to be represented, 
in no mconsiaerabie degree, in the French and American revolu- 
tions which occurred about a century after the publication of 
tiie Treatises. Nor have his speculations been without their 
share, probably, in determining much of the political history and 
suil more of the political sentiment of our own country. To main- 
tain that kings have a divine right to misgovern their subjects, or 
to deny that the people are, in the last resort, the supreme arbiters 
of the fate of their rulers, are paradoxes which, to Englishmen of 
our generation, would appear not so much dangerous as foolish- 
This altered state of sentiment, and the good fruit it has borne in 
the improved relations between the Legislature and the People, the 
Crown and the Parliament, may, without undue partiality, be as- 
cribed, at least in some measure, to the generous spirit ot liberty 
which warms our author's pages, and to the Whig tradition which 
so long cherished his doctrines, till at last they became the common 
heritage of the English people. 

Admirable, however, as, in most respects, are the parts of Locke's 
treatise which discuss the present relations of governors and gov- 
erned, his conception of the remote origin of political society is 
radically false. "The first framers of the government," "the 
original frame of the government " (ch. xiii.), have never had any 
existence except in the minds of jurists and publicists. In the 
primitive stages of human development, governments, like languages, 
are not made ; they grow. The observation of primitive communities 
still existing, combined with the more intelligent study of ancient his- 
tory, has led recent writers to adopt a wholly different view of the 
origin of government (the question of the respective rights of gov- 
ernors and governed is not affected) from that which prevailed in the 
times of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. The family or the tribe 
(according to different theories) is the original unit of societv. Gov- 
ernment, therefore, of some kind or other always have existed, and the 
" state of nature " is a mere fiction. In course or time, the family 
or the tribe, by a natural process of development, would, in many 
cases, become greatly enlarged, or combine with other units like 
itself. Out of this growth or aggregation would arise, in most cases 
graduallv and insensibly, the nation or state as known to later his- 
tory. The constitution, the " frame of government," has generally 
passed through stages similar to those passed through by the state or 
nation. A body of custom must gradually have grown up even in 
the most primitive societies. The " customs " would be interpreted 
and so administered by the house-father or head of the tribe. But, 
as the family or tribe changed its abode, or had to carry on its exist- 
ence under different circumstances, or became enlarged, or combined 
with other families or tribes, the customs would necessarily be 
modified, often insensibly and unconsciously. Moreover, the 
house-father or head of the tribe might be compelled or might find 
it expedient to act in concert with others, either as equals or 



120 LOCKE. 

subordinates, in interpreting the customs, in taking measures of 
defence, in directing military operations, or in providing for the 
various exigencies oi the common life. Here there is So formal 
assent of the governed to the acts of the governors, in our sense 
of those terms, though, undoubtedly, the whole family or tribe or 
its stronger members, might on rare occasions substitute one head 
for another; no passage from the "state of nature" to political 
society ; no definitely constituted " frame of government." At a 
further stage, no doubt, political constitutions were discussed and 
framed, but this stage was long posterior to the period in the prog- 
ress of society at which men are supposed to have quitted the stafe 
ot nature, selected their form of government, and entered into an 
express contract with one another to obey and maintain it. The 
fault of Locke, like that of the other political speculators of the 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, consisted in assuming that 
primitive man was impelled by the same motives, and acted m the 
same manner and with the same deliberate design, as the men of his 
own generation. As in morals and psychology, so in politics, the 
historical and comparative methods, so familiar to recent investiga- 
tors, were as yet hardly known. 

I ought not to dismiss this book without noticing Locke's re- 
marks on the necessity of Parliamentary Reform. " To what gross 
absurdities the following custom, when reason has left it, may lead, 
we may be satisfied when we see the bare name of a town, of which 
there remains not so much as the ruins, where scarce so much housing 
as a sheepcote or more inhabitants than a shepherd is to be found, 
sends as many representatives to the grand assembly of law-makers 
as a whole county numerous in people and powerful in riches/' 

The writings of Locke on Trade and Finance are chiefly inter 
esting to us on account of the place which they occupy in the His- 
tory of Political Economy. They consist of three tracts, the occa- 
sions and consequences of which have already been described- 
The main positions which he endeavours to establish are three* 
First, interest, or the price of the hire of money, cannot, ordinarily 
speaking, be regulated by law, and, if it could so be regulated, its 
reduction below the natural or market rate would be injurious to 
the interests of the public. Secondly, as silver and gold are com- 
modities not differing intrinsically in their nature from other com- 
modities, it is impossible by arbitrary acts of the Government to 
raise the value of silver and gold coins. You may, indeed, enjoin 
by Act of Parliament that sixpence shall henceforth be called a 
shilling, but, all the same, it will only continue to purchase sixpenny- 
worth of goods. You will soon find that the new shilling is only as 
effective in the market as the old sixpence, and hence, if the Gov- 
ernment has taken the difference, it has simply robbed its subjects 
to that amount. The third position, which he only maintains inci- 
dentally in discussing the other two, is that the commercialpros- 
perity of the country is to be measured by the excess of its exports 
over its imports, or, as the phrase then went, by the balance o/ 



LOCKE. 121 

trade. The two former of these propositions are simple, but long- 
disputed, economical truths. The latter is an obstinate and spe- 
cious economical fallacy. 

To understand Locke's contention on the first point, it must be 
borne in mind that in his time, and down even to the middle of the 
present reign, the maximum rate of interest allowable in all ordi- 
nary transactions was fixed by law. By the statute 12 Car. II. 
(passed in 1660) it had been reduced from eight to six per cent. 
Sir Josiah Child, whose Observations concerning Trade had been 
reprinted in 1690, and who probably represented a very large 
amount of mercantile opinion, advocated its further reduction to 
four per cent. He maintained, quoting the example of Holland, 
that low interest is the cause of national wealth, and that, conse- 
quently, to lower the legal rate of interest would be to take a speedy 
and simple method of making the country richer. Against this 
proposal Locke argued that the example of Holland was entirely 
beside the question ; that the low rate of interest in that country 
was owing to the abundance of ready money which it had formerly 
enjoyed, and not to any legal restrictions ; nay, in the States there 
was no law limiting the rate of interest at all, every one being free 
to hire out his money for anything he could get for it, and the 
courts enforcing the bargain. But, further, suppose the proposed 
law to be enacted : what would be the consequences ? It would be 
certain to be evaded, while, at the same time, it would hamper trade, 
by increasing the difficulty of borrowing and lending. Rather than 
lend at a low rate of interest, many men would hoard, and, conse- 
quently, much of the money which would otherwise find its u r ay 
into trade would be intercepted, and the commerce of the country 
be proportionately lessened. Excellent as most of these argu- 
ments are, Locke unfortunately stopped short of the legitimate con- 
clusion to be drawn from them. He did not propose, as he should 
have done, to sweep away the usury laws altogether, but simply to 
maintain the existing law fixing the maximum of interest at six per 
cent. Sir Dudley North, in his admirable pamphlet Discourses on 
Trade, published in 1691, just before the publication of the Consid- 
eratiotis, but too late, perhaps, to have been seen by Locke, takes 
a much more consistent view as to the expediency of legal restric- 
tions on the rate of interest. " As touching interest of money, he 
is clear that it should be left freely to the market, and not be re- 
strained by law." Notwithstanding the opposition of men like 
North and Locke, to whom may be added an earlier writer Sir 
William Petty, the arguments of Child partially triumphed in the 
next reign. By the 12th of Anne, the legal rate of interest was re- 
duced to five per cent., and so continued till the Act of 1854. re- 
pealing, with regard to all future transactions, the existing Usury 
Laws. There can be little doubt that public opinion had been pre- 
pared for this measure mainly through the publication of Ben- 
tham's powerful Defence of Usury, the telling arguments of which 
had gradually impressed themselves on the minds of statesmen and 
economists. Adam Smith, on the other hand, had stopped just 



122 LOCKE. 

where Locke did. " The legal rate of interest, though it ought to 
be somewhat above, ought not be much above the lowest market 
rate." That the rate of interest, whatever it may be, should be 
fixed by law, he appears to take for granted. Indeed, he seems to 
write more confidently on this point than Locke had done, and, in 
this particular at least, he appears to be of opinion that the legis- 
lator can look after the private interests of individuals better than 
they can look after their own. Happily, as Bentham points out, 
the refutation of this paradox was to be found in the general drift 
and spirit of his work. 

On the second question, " raising the value of money," Locke's 
views are much clearer and more consistent than on the first. It 
would be impossible to state more explicitly than he has done the 
sound economical dictum that gold and silver are simply com- 
modities, not differing essentially from other commodities ; and 
that the government stamp upon them, whereby they become 
coin, cannot materially raise their value. As most of my readers 
are aware, it has been a favourite device, time out of mind, of un- 
principled and impecunious governments to raise the denomination 
of the coin, or to put a smaller quantity of the precious metals in 
coins retaining the old denomination, with a view of recruiting an 
impoverished exchequer. There have, doubtless, been financiers 
unintelligent enough to suppose that this expedient might enrich 
the government, while it did no harm to the people. But it requires 
only a small amount of reflection to see that all creditors are de- 
frauded exactly in the same proportion as that in which the coin is 
debased. One lucid passage from Locke's answer to Lowndes 
may suffice to show the forcible manner in which he presents this 
truth : 

" Raising of coin is but a specious word to deceive the unwary. It 
only gives the usual denomination of a greater quantity of silver to a less 
(v. g., calling four grains of silver a penny to-day. when five grains of sil- 
ver made a penny yesterday), but adds no worth or real value to the sil- 
ver coin, to make amends for its want of silver. That is impossible to be 
done. For it is only the quantity of silver in it that is, and eternally will 
be, the measure of its value. One may as rationally hope to lengthen a 
foot, by dividing it into fifteen parts instead of twelve and calling them 
inches, as to increase the value of silver that is in a shilling, by dividing 
it into fifteen parts instead of twelve and calling them pence. This is all 
that is done when a shilling is raised from twelve to fifteen pence." 

Lowndes had maintained that "raising the coin," in addition to 
making up the loss caused by calling in the clipped money, and 
other advantages, would increase the circulating medium of the 
country, and so put a stop to the multiplication of hazardous paper- 
credit and the inconveniences of bartering. Nothing could be 
better than Locke's reply: 

"Just as the boy cut his leather into five quarters (as he called them) 



LOCKE. 123 

to cover his ball, when cut into four quarters it fell short, but, after all his 
pains, as much of his ball lay bare as before; if the quantity of coined 
silver employed in England fall short, the arbitrary denomination of a 
greater number of pence given to it, or, which is all one, to the several 
coined pieces of it, will not make it commensurate to the size of our trade 
or the greatness of our occasions. This is as certain as that, if the quan- 
tity of a board which is to stop a leak of a ship fifteen inches square, be 
but twelve inches square, it will not be made to do it by being measured 
by a foot that is divided into fifteen inches, instead of twelve, and so hav- 
ing a larger tale or number of inches in denomination given to it." 

The general principle that to depreciate the coinage is to rob 
the creditor, and that, though you may change the name, you can- 
not change the thing, was quite as emphatically stated by Petty 
and North as by Locke. But the value of Locke's tracts consisted 
in their amplitude of argument and illustration, which left to the 
unprejudiced reader no alternative but to accept their conclusion. 
As he himself said in a letter to Molyneux, " Lay by the arbitrary 
names of pence and shillings, and consider and speak of it as 
grains and ounces of silver, and 'tis as easy as telling of twenty." 

Locke had the penetration to see that the laws existing in his 
time against the exportation of gold and silver coin must neces- 
sarily be futile, and, while it was permitted to export bullion, could 
answer no conceivable purpose. These laws, which date from the 
time of Edward the Third, were, curiously enough, not repealed 
till the year 1819, though as early as the time of the Restoration 
they had been pronounced by so competent a judge as Sir William 
Petty to be "nugatory " and "impracticable." Nothing, as Locke 
says towards the conclusion of his answer to Lowndes, could pre- 
vent the exportation of silver and gold in payment of debts con- 
tracted beyond the seas, and it could " be no odds to England 
whether it was carried out in specie or when melted down into 
bullion." But the principle on which the prohibition of exporting 
gold and silver coin ultimately rested seems to have been accepted 
by him as unhesitatingly as it was by almost all the other econo- 
mists of the time. That principle was that the wealth of a nation 
is to be measured by the amount of gold and silver in its posses- 
sion, this amount depending on the ratio of the value of the ex- 
ports to that of the imports. When the value of the exports ex- 
ceeded that of the imports, the Balance of Trade, as it was called, 
was said to be in favour of a country; when, on the other hand, 
the value of the imports exceeded that of the exports, the Balance 
of Trade was said to be against it. A favourable balance, it was 
assumed, must necessarily increase the amount of gold and silver 
in the country, while an unfavourable balance must necessarily 
diminish it. And, lastly, the amount of gold and silver in its pos- 
session was the measure of a nation's wealth. These views form 
part of what political economists call the Mercantile Theory, which 
it was the peculiar glory of Adam Smith to demolish. 

It is somewhat humiliating to the biographer of Locke to be 



I24 LOCKE. 

obliged to confess that, in this respect, his theories on trade lag 
considerably behind those of an almost contemporary writer, Sir 
Dudley North, whose work has already been mentioned. Some of 
North's maxims are worthy of Adam Smith, and one wonders 
that, when once enunciated, they found so little currency, and were 
so completely ignored in both the literature and the legislation of 
the time. Here are a few, but the whole tract may be read in less 
than an hour: " The whole world, as to trade, is but as one nation 
or people, and therein nations are as persons." " The loss of a. 
trade with one nation is not that only, separately considered, but 
so much of the trade of the world rescinded and lost, for all is com- 
bined together." "No laws can set prices in trade, the rates of 
which must and will make themselves ; but, when such laws do 
happen to lay any hold, it is so much impediment to trade, and 
therefore prejudicial." " No man is richer for having his estate 
all in money, plate, &c, lying by him, but, on the contrary, he is 
for that reason the poorer. That man is richest whose estate is 
in a growing condition, either in land at farm, money at interest, 
or goods in trade." " Money exported in trade is an increase to 
the wealth of the nation; but spent in war and payments abroad, 
is so much impoverishment." " We may labour to hedge in the 
Cuckoo, but in vain ; for no people ever yet grew rich by policies, 
but it is peace, industry, and freedom that brings trade and wealth, 
and nothing else." 

Some of Locke's opinions on trade and finance were undoubt- 
edly erroneous, and it must be confessed that the little tract of Sir 
Dudley North supplies a better summary of sound economical 
doctrine than any which we can find in his writings ; but then this 
brochure is merely a summary, with little of argument or elucida- 
tion, and perhaps it would be difficult to point to any previous or 
contemporary writer whose works are, on the whole, more impor- 
tant in the history of economical science than those of Locke." 



LOCKE. **c 



CHAPTER XII. 

LOCKE'S INFLUENCE ON THOUGHT. 

To trace Locke's influence' on subsequent speculation would 
be to write the History of Philosophy from his time to our own. 
In England, France, and Germany there have been few writers on 
strictly philosophical questions in this century or the last who have 
not either quoted Locke's Essay with approbation, or at least paid 
him the homage of stating their grounds for dissenting from it. 
In the last century, his other works, especially those on Govern- 
ment and Toleration, may be said to have almost formed the rec- 
ognized code of liberal opinion in this country, besides exercising 
a & considerable influence on the rapidly developing speculations 
which, in the middle of the century, were preparing an intellectual 
no less than a social revolution in France. I can here only speak 
of the nature of Locke's influence, and of the directions it took, in 
the very broadest outline, and it is the less necessary that I should 
enter into detail, as I have frequently adverted to it in the preced- 
ing chapters. 

In England, the Essay, though from the first it had its ardent 
admirers, seemed, for some years after its appearance, to have pro- 
duced its effect on English philosophical literature mainly by an- 
tagonism. Many were the critics who attacked the " new way of 
ideas," and attempted to show the evil consequences to morals, 
religion, and exact thought which must follow from the acceptance 
of Locke's speculations. Here and there he was defended, but the 
attack certainly largely outnumbered the defence. Of these con- 
troversies I have already given some account in the chapters on 
Locke's Life, and need not, therefore, now recur to them. The 
first English writer on philosophy of the highest rank who suc- 
ceeded Locke was Berkeley, and on him the influence of his pre* 
decessor is so distinctly apparent, that it may well be questioned 
whether Berkeley would ever have wiitten the Principles and the 
Dialogues, if Locke had not written the Essay. Locke had re- 
garded not "things" but "ideas" as the immediate objects of 
the mind in thinking, though he had supposed these ideas to be 
representative of things ; but why, argued Berkeley, suppose 
" things " to exist, if " ideas " are the only objects which we per- 
ceive ? Again, Locke had analyzed the idea of Matter conceived 
as " Substance " into " we know not what " support of known qual- 



* 2 6 LOCKE. 

ities. How, then, said Berkeley, do we know that it exists? The 
idealist philosophy of Berkeley may thus be viewed as a develop- 
ment, on one side, of the philosophy of Locke. But Hume, by 
carrying Berkeley's scepticism further than he had done himself, 
and by questioning the reality of Substance, as applied either to 
matter or mind, may be said to have developed Locke's principles 
in a direction which was practically the very reverse of that taken 
by Berkeley. For the result of Berkeley's denial of " matter " was 
to enhance the importance of "mind," and to re-assure men as to 
the existence of one all-embracing mind in the person of the Deity. 
But the result of the questions which Hume raised as to the sub- 
stantial existence of either Matter or Mind was to leave men in a 
state of pure scepticism, or, as we should now perhaps call it, Ag- 
nosticism. On the other applications of Hume's method, I need 
not detain the reader. To the ordinary common-sense Englishman, 
who approached philosophical questions with interest but without 
any special metaphysical aptitude, the systems both of Hume and 
Berkeley appeared to be open to the fatal objection of paradox, and 
hence, throughout the eighteenth century, Locke continued, in or- 
dinary estimation, to hold the supreme place among English phil- 
osophers. Horace Walpole (writing in 1789) probably expresses 
the average opinion of the English reading public of his time, when 
he says that Locke (with whom he couples Bacon) was almost the 
first philosopher who introduced common-sense into his writings. 
Nor was it only that he was supreme in popular estimation. His 
influence is apparent in almost every philosophical and quasi-phil- 
osophical work of the period. It may specially be mentioned that 
the doctrine of Innate Ideas went out of fashion, both word and 
thing, and, when a similar doctrine came into vogue at the end of 
the century, under the authority of Reid and Stewart, it was in a 
modified form and under a new appellation, that of primary or fun- 
damental beliefs. These authors always spoke with the greatest 
respect of Locke, and Stewart especially was always anxious to 
establish, when possible, an identity of opinion between himself 
and his illustrious predecessor. And even in recent times, when 
the topics and conditions of philosophical speculation have under- 
gone so much change, there are few philosophical authors of emi- 
nence who do not make frequent reference to Locke's Essay. It 
is now perhaps seldom read through except by professed students 
of philosophy, but it is still probably oftener "dipped into" than 
any other philosophical treatise in the language. 

In France, the Essay at first made little way. It took more 
than twenty years to sell off li - first edition of the French transla- 
tion, but from 1723 to 1758 ediiions followed one another in rapid 
succession at intervals of about six years. Voltaire says that no 
man had been less read or more abused in France than Locke. The 
points in his philosophy whic 1 1 seem to have been specially selected 
for attack were the statements that God might, if he pleased, annex 
thought to matter, and that the natural reason could not alone 
assure us of the immortality of the soul. The qualifications, as the 



JLOCKE. £2J 

custom is, were dropped out of these statements, and it was roundly 
asserted that Locke maintained the soul to be material and mortal. 
Voltaire does not fail to point out the hastiness and injustice or 
these conclusions, and is himself unbounded in his aamiration for 
the Enolish philosopher. Malebranche, he says, is read on account 
of the aoreeableness of his style, Descartes on account of the har- 
dihood of his speculations ; Locke is not read, because he is merely 
wise. There never was a thinker more wise, more methodical, more 
logical than Locke. Other reasoners had written a romance of the 
soul ; Locke came and modestly wrote its history, developing the 
ideas of the human understanding as an accomplished anatomist ex- 
plains the forces of the human body. Voltaire lived to see the phi- 
losophy of Locke, or rather an extreme phase of it, become almost 
the established creed of those who cared at all for speculative- 
questions in France. Condillac in his early work, the Essai sur I 0> i~ 
ginc des Connoissances Humaines (first published in 1746), simply 
adopts Locke's account of the origin of knowledge, finding it in the 
two sources of Sensation and Reflection. But in his later work, the 
Traite des Sensations, which appeared in 1754, he has gone far 
beyond his master, and not only finds the origin of all knowledge 
in sensation alone, but of all our faculties as well. It is in this work 
that the metaphor of the gradually animated statue occurs. Con- 
dillac's system soon became the fashionable philosophy of his 
countrymen, and both friends and foes credited Locke with its 
parentage. With Joseph de Maistre, who may be regarded as the 
bitterest exponent of French Ultramontanism, Locke is the im- 
mediate link through whom Helvetius, Cabanis, and the other 
enemies of the human race in France had derived from Bacon the 
principles which had been so destructive to their ccuntrv and 
mankind. But it was not the followers of Condillac only who 
professed to base their systems on the principles of Locke. De- 
gerando, writing in 1813, says, "All the French philosophers of 
his age glory in ranging themselves among the disciples of Locke, 
and admitting his principles." The great names of Turgot, Did- 
erot, D'Alembert, Condorcet, and Destutt de Tracy alike appear 
in the roll of his professed disciples. And even when the reac- 
tion against the authority of Locke began in France, his influence 
might still be traced in authors like Maine de Biran, Royer 
Collard, Cousin, and Jouffroy, however emphaticallv they might 
repudiate his system as a Avhole. Lastly, Auguste Comte may be 
connected with Locke through Hume. 

Except by way of reaction and opposition, Locke's influence 
has been felt much less in Germany than in either England or 
France. The earliest opponent of his philosophy, who himself held 
any high rank as a philosopher, was Leibnitz, who, in his Nouveaux 
Essais (written in 1704, but not published till 1765), attacked not 
only Locke's specific conclusions, but his method of commencing 
his study of philosophy with an examination of the human mind. 
Yet he recognises the Essay as "one of the most beautiful and 
most esteemed works of this time." It mav be remarked as curious 



128 LOCKE, 

that he is disposed to rate the Thoughts on Education even still 
higher than tiie lissay. iiut, when we think 01 .Locke s relation to 
German pnilosophy, it is mainly in connection with the antagonism 
of Kant, t or, tnuugh Kant states that he was "awoke trom his 
dogmatic slumber ;/ oy reading Hume, it is plain, throughout the 
Kritik, th.it he has in his mind the s [stem oi Locke at least as 
much as that of his sceptical successor. And yet these two great 
philosophers, the reformer of English and the reformer of German 
philosophy, have much in common, specially their mode of approach- 
ing the problems of ontology and theology, which have vexed so 
many generations of thinkers, by first inquiring into the limits, ca- 
pacities, and procedure of the human mind. 

Of the specific influence of Locke's treatises on Government, 
Religion, Toleration, Education, and Finance I have already said 
something in previous chapters. In each one of these subjects the 
publication of his views forms a point of departure, and no writer on 
the history of any one of them could dispense with a lengthened 
notice of his theories. 

But far more important than their specific influence on other 
writers, or even on the development of the subjects with which they 
deal, has been the effect of Locke's writings on the history of pro- 
gress and civilization. In an age of excitement and prejudice, he 
set men the example of thinking calmly and clearly. When philos- 
ophy was almost synonymous with the arid discussion of scholastic 
subtleties, he wrote so as to interest statesmen and men of the 
world. At a time when the chains of dogma were far tighter, and 
the penalties of attempting to loosen them far more stringent, than 
it is now easy to conceive, he raised questions which stirred the 
very depths of human thought. And all this he did in a spirit so 
candid, so tolerant, hO liberal, and so unselfish, that he seemed to 
be writing not for his own party or his own times, but for the future 
of knowledge and of mankind. To sound every question to the 
bottom, never to allow our convictions to outstrip our evidence, to 
throw aside all prejudices and all interests in the pursuit of truth, 
but to hold the truth, when found, in all charity and with all con- 
sideration towards those who have been less fortunate than we — 
these are the lessons which, faithfully transmitted through two cen- 
turies by those who had eyes to see and ears to hear, he has be- 
queathed to us and our poste 



LOVELL'S LIBRARY-CATALOGUE. 



185. Mysterious Island, Pt II. 15 
Mysterious Island, PtI 1 1. 15 

186. Tom Brown at Oxford, 

2 Parts, each 15 

187. Thicker than Water. . . .20 

188. In Silk Attire 20 

189. Scottish Chiefs, Part I.. 20 
Scottish Chiefs, Part 1 1. 20 

190. Willy Reilly 20 

191. The Nautz Family 20 

c 92. Great Expectations 20 

B<93. Hist.of Pendennis,Pt I.. 20 

Hist. of Pendennis,Pt II 20 
jfi94. Widow Bedott Papers ..20 
l 195. Daniel Deronda, Part I.. 20 

Daniel Deronda, Part 1 1. 20 

196. Altiora Peto 20 

"T97. By the Gate of the Sea.. 15 

198. Tales of a Traveller 20 

199. Life and Voyages of Co- 

lumbus, 2 Parts, each. 20 

>oo. The Pilgrim's Progress.. 20 

■ 01. MartinChuzzlewit,P'rt 1. 20 

MartinChuzzlewit,P't II. 20 

1202. Theophrastus Such 10 

1203. Disarmed 15 

! 204. Eugene Aram 20 

205. The Spanish Gypsy, &C.20 

206. Cast up by the Sea 20 

207. Mill on the Floss, Part 1. 15 
Mill on the Floss, P't II. 15 

208. Brother Jacob, etc 10 

K09. The Executor 20 

fcio. American Notes 15 

fan. The Newcomes, Part I.. 20 

The Newcomes, Part II. 20 

212. The Privateersman 20 

B13. The Three Feathers 20 

Iii4. Phantom Fortune 20 

215. The Red Eric 20 

,216. Lady Silverdale's Sweet- 
heart 10 

ai7- The Four Macnicol's. ..10 
2i8.Mr.PisistratusBrown,M.P.io 

219. Dombeyand Son, Part 1. 20 
Dombey and Son, Part II.20 

220. Book of Snobs 10 

jp22i. Fairy Tales, Illustrated. . 20 

222. The Disowned 20 

223. Little Dorrit, Part 1 20 

Little Dorrit, Part II 20 

224. Abbotsford and New- 

stead Abbey 10 

225. Oliver Goldsmith, Black 10 

226. The Fire Brigade 20 

227. Rifle and Hound in Cey- 
lon 20 

228. Our Mutual Friend,P't 1. 20 
OurMutualFriend.P't II.20 

229. Paris Sketches 15 

230. Belinda 20 

231. Nicholas Nickleby.P't 1. 20 
NicholasNicklebv.P't 1 1. 20 

232. Monarch of Mincing 

Lane 20 

233- Eight Years' Wanderings 

in Ceylon 20 

234« Pictures from Italy 15 

*35-Adventures of Philip, PtI. 15 
Adventures of Philip, Pt II.15 
•36. Knickerbocker History 
of New York , ao 



237. The Boy at Mugby 10 

238. The Virginians, Part I.. 20 
The Virginians, Part II. 20 

239. Erling the Bold 20 

240. Kenelm Chillingly 20 

241. Deep Down 20 

242. Samuel Brohl & Co 20 

243. Gautran 20 

244. Bleak House, Part I 20 

Bleak House, Part 1 1.., 20 

245. What Will He Do With 

It ? 2 Parts, each 20 

246. Sketches of YoungCouples. 10 

247. Devereux 20 

248. Life of Webster, P..c 1. 15 
Life of Webster, Pt. II. 15 

249. The Crayon Papers 20 

250. The Caxtons, Part I .... 15 
The Caxtons, Part II ... 15 

251. Autobiography of An- 

thony Trollope 20 

252. Critical Reviews, etc. ... 10 

253. Lucretia 20 

254. Peter the Whaler 20 

255. Last of the Barons. Pt 1. 15 
Last of the Barons, Pt. 1 1. 15 

256. Eastern Sketches 15 

257. All in a Garden Fair 20 

258. File No. 113 20 

259. The Parisians, Part I... 20 
The Parisians, Part II.. 20 

260. Mrs. Darling's Letters ... 20 

261. Master Humphrey's * 
Clock 10 

262. Fatal Boots, etc 10 

263. The Alhambra 15 

264. The Four Georges 10 

26s. Plutarch's Lives, 5 Pts. $1. 

266. Under the Red Flag 10 

267. TheHaunted House, etc. 10 

268. When the Ship Comes 
Home 10 

269. One False, both Fair 20 

270. The Mudfog Papers, etc. 10 

271. My Novel, 3 Parts, each.20 

272. Conquest of Granada. ..20 

273. Sketches by Boz 20 

274. A Christmas Carol, etc. . 15 

275. lone Stewart 20 

276. Harold, 2 Parts, each... 1 s 

277. Dora Thome 20 

278. Maid of Athens. . 20 

2 79. Conquest of Spain 10 

280. Fitzboodle Papers, etc 10 

281. Bracebridge Hall 20 

282. Uncommercial Traveller.20 

283. Roundabout Papers 20 

284. Rossmoyne 20 

285. A Legend of the Rhine, 

etc 10 

286. Cox's Diary, etc 10 

287. Beyond Pardon 20 

288. Somebody'sLuggage,etc.io 

289. Godolphin 20 

290. Salmagundi 20 

291. Famous Funny Fellows. 20 

292. Irish Sketches, etc 20 

293. The Battle of Life, etc... 10 

294. Pilgrims of the Rhine. . . 15 

295. Random Shots 20 

296. Men's Wives 10 

297. Mystery of Edwin Drood,2o 



298. Reprinted Pieces 20 

299. Astoria ....20 

300. Novels by Eminent Handsio 

301. Companions of Columbus2o 

302. No Thoroughfare 10 

303. Character Sketches, etc. 10 

304. Christmas Books . .20 

305. A Tour on the Prairies... 10 

306. Ballads 15 

307. Yellowplush Papers 10 

308. Life of Mahomet, Part 1. 15 
Life of Mahomet, Pt. II. 15 

309. Sketches and Travels in 

London 10 

310. Oliver Goldsmith,Irving.20 

3 1 1. Captain Bonneville .... 20 

312. Golden Girls 20 

313. English Humorists 15 

314. Moorish Chronicles 10 

315. Winifred Power 20 

316. Great HoggartyDiamond 10 

317. Pausanias 15 

318. The New Abelard 20 

3 19. A Real Queen 20 

320. The Rose and the Ring.20 

32 1. Wolf ert's Roost and Mis- 

cellanies, by Irving 10 

322. Mark Seawo'rth 20 

323. Life of Paul Jones 20 

324. Round the World 20 

325? Elbow Room 20 

326. The Wizard's Son 25 

327. Harry Lorrequer 20 

328. How It All Came Round.20 

329. Dante Rosetti's Poems. 20 

330. The Canon's Ward 20 

331. Lucile, by O. Meredith. 20 

332. Every Day Cook Book.. 20 

333. Lays of Ancient Rome . . 20 

334. Life of Burns 20 

335. The Young Foresters... 20 

336. John Bull andHis Island 20 

337. Salt Water, by Kingston. 20 

338. The Midshipman 20 

339. Proctor's Poems ao 

340. Clayton's Rangers 20 

341. Gchiller's Poems • 20 

342. Goethe's Faust 20 

343. Goethe's Poems 20 

344. Life of Thackeray io 

345. Dante's Vision of Hell, 
Purgatory and Paradise.. 20 

346. An Interesting Case 20 

347. Life of Byron, Nichol... 10 

348. Life of Bun y an 10 

349. Valerie's Fate 10 

350. Grandfather Lickshingle. 20 
35 x. Lays of the Scottish Ca- 
valiers 20 

352. Willis' Poems 20 

353. Tales of the French Re- 

volution 15 

354. Loom and Lugger ...... 20 

355. More Leaves from a Life 

in the Highlands.... ..15 

356. Hygiene of the Brain. ..25 

357. Berkeley the Banker. ... 20 ' 

358. Homes Abroad 15 

359. Scott's Lady of the Lake, 

with notes 20 

360. Modern Christianity a 
civilized Heathenism.. . . 15 



I BHAI2T AITD NERVE .FOOD 




Vitalized Phos-phites, 

COMPOSED OF THE NERVE-GIVING PRINCIPLES OF 
THE OX-BRAIN AND WHEAT-GERM, 

It restores the energy lost by Nervousness or Indigestion; relieves 
Lassitude and Neuralgia ; refreshes the nerves tired by worry, exoite- 
ment, or excessive brain fatigue ; strengthens a failing memory, and 

f lives renewed vigor in all diseases of Nervous Exhaustion or Debility,, 
t is the only PREVENTIVE FOR CONSUMPTION. 

It aids wonderfully in the mental and bodily growth of infants and 
children. Under its use the teeth come easier, the bones grow better, the skin 
plumper and smoother; the brain acquires more readily, and rests and sleep* 
more sweetly. An ill-fed brain learns no lessons, and is excusable ifpwml 
It gwes a happier and better childhood. 

"It is with the utmost confidence that I recommend this excellent pre- 
paration for the relief of indigestion and for general debility; nay, I do more 
than recommend, 1 really urge all invalids to put it to the test, for in sev- 
eral cases personally known to me signal benefits have been derived from 
its use. I have recently watched its effects on a young friend who has 
suffered from indigestion all her life. After taking the Vitalized Phos- 
phites for a fortnight she said to me; ' I feel another person; it is a pleas- 
ure to live. * Many hard-working men and women — especially those engaged 
in brain work — would be saved from the fatal resort to chloral and other 
destructive stimulants* if they would have recourse to a remedy so simple 
and so efficacious," 

Emily Faithfuia. 



Physicians hays prescribed over 600,000 Packages because they 
mow its Composition, that it is not a secret remedy, ajtb> 

THAT THE FORMULA IS PRINTED ON EVERY LABE& 
For Sale toy Druggists or by Mall, £x. 

F. CROSBY CO., 56 West 25th Street. 






Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: August 2004 

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